>>>>>But you know it's not that simple. For example, I heard someone from the FAA explain that while air traffic controllers are (of course) considered essential, the folks who train them are not. That works in the short run, but not the long run.
>>>>>
>>>>>I'm willing to acknowledge that those who train the air traffic controllers should be considered essential - so long as Obama's golf caddy is considered non-essential. :)
>>>>
>>>>Actually, I agree that the trainers are not essential ... if the shutdown is a matter of days or a few weeks. If it's longer, they become essential.
>>>>
>>>>My point was that just because we don't consider a job essential in a government shutdown, that doesn't mean it's not an important job that we need.
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>Agreed.
>>>All this is child's play compared to the upcoming debt ceiling vote.
>>>If the repubs mess with that one, they can do some serious damage.
>>
>>If the libs don't want to negotiate, then its time to mess with it...
>
>It's kind of hard to negotiate with someone who starts with "Do it my way or I'll take my ball and go home"

It's only in Fox News/Tea Party land that people think that having to raise the debt ceiling is "liberal" thing.

Before Bush was appointed president by Scalia and company in 2000, there was a substantial budget surplus and there was a serious chance that the entire national debt would be eradicated within a decade.

Government employment declined under Clinton.
The debt ceiling could have been reduced.
GDP was growing steadily.
The unemployment rate was around 4% and declining.


The appointed president and his fellow repubs then slashed taxes on the rich by trillions before starting two wars that would cost trillions and creating more government bureaucracy - Homeland Security and National Intelligence- than has been created by all the dems since Johnson.

When Bush left office after presiding over the largest economic calamity since 1929, a budget surplus had been turned into a massive deficit and the national debt, instead of shrinking, had grown to record levels and was continuing to grow at rapid rates.
The unemployment rate was over 8% and rising.
GDP was negative.
The debt ceiling had been blown thru the roof.

Since Obama took office the budget deficit, Fox news notwithstanding, has actually come down and government employment has declined.

Now, how is having to raise the debt ceiling a "liberal" thing?