Shutdown Redux

In which I comment on the state of Federal governance.

(Posted 2015-09-28 19:38:00 +0000)

As I write this, Facebook is down. Also the U.S. House of Representatives is in session. Unlike the House, Facebook will eventually be fixed.

It’s now the third time in as many years that the federal government is coming up to the end of the fiscal year (September 30) without a budget in place. And by “coming up to the end”, I mean right up against the midnight deadline, and possibly beyond. In 2013 the government shut down for 16 days. In 2014 a continuing resolution (CR) was passed after the last minute, sometime after midnight on October 1. This year, there’s two days and eight hours left, and the House is busy at work…debating a bill to let the Government buy remanufactured auto parts to maintain federal vehicles instead of new ones. (Oh look, the bill just passed.)

Now they are debating a bill to close out expired grant accounts.

I don’t know when they’ll get around to actually funding the government. Probably sometime Wednesday night.

Oh—and the Senate won’t even be in session until 4:00pm today (20.00 UTC).

I know this isn’t much of an update. I’ll try to post more soon.