And air traffic control, and the army, navy, and air force, and the CIA and the FBI. Privatise all of those too.

It's hard to tell whether or not either of you is joking. You seem to think that just because a paycheck comes form the Federal government that somehow those recieving it are magically endowed with special abilities. Do you honestly think that sending money to the Federal Government so that paper pushers can skim salaries off the top and then forward the money BACK to the states is somehow making things better?

For example, our Federal parks are shut down right now, even though the Park Ranger in Yosemite lives out west, not in Washington. Some states have even offered to open the Federal Parks (Obama refused the offer...)....but clearly there is no reason the Feds need to run these parks.

The energy industry, for example, is run by private indudstry, and has to meet Federal Regulation. Why can not be set aside by the Feds - say, Yosemite - but be run by a private or state run organization that collects the entrance fees, pays the workers, etc, as long as they comply with whatever Federal regulations are in place to protect the land? There is *NO* good reason Federal parks must be run this way - this way meaning "send money to Feds to skim cash off the top and sen money back to the parks..."

Education is the same way - why are we funding education through the Federal government? We take money from your state, send it to the Feds to skim off the top, and then they send less money back, with a bunch of strings attached, as if the elected representatives in your state are too stupid to run a school system. Clearly the Feds have demonstrated that they are not capable of running anything...and yet we entrust our children's education in part to them?

A Private prison system would have to operate under the exact same legal standards as a government run system. And so on....There is nothing magical about something being run by the Feds OTHER than the magical way they return to you fewer dollars than you sent to them.

So on that basis you *would* be happy with a privatised army as long as it met federal regulation?

This is colossally stupid. Prisons weren't shut down. The Armed Forces, Air Traffic Control, and the FBI and CIA weren't shut down. Regardless of your thoughts on what government should be doing with any of these, the fact is that they weren't shut down and thus that krellin wasn't talking about privatizing them in the OP.

This place thrives on straw men. It's really disappointing.

Only non-essential workers were shut down, which gives some federal workers a sense of how unimportant they are to the rest of the world.

The federal court system was shut down meaning all those cases need to be rescheduled after some people already waited months to get there.

Arizona has stopped payments on some welfare programs that are only paid for by the federal government, because the poor usually vote Democrat and the state governor is Republican. She's not going to lose supporters.

@Jamei - The problem with your private army is that the Constitution actually requires teh government to provide for the national defense...i.e. an army....therefore it is a legitimate function of the government. The Department of Education, on the other hand, is not Constitutionally mandated.

As for PE - nobody said prisons were shut down. That being said, that doesn't mean that prisons need to be run by the federal government. Ait Traffic controllers as well - no need for them to be Fed employees, whether or not they are shut down right now.

The only thing colossally stupid here is someone thinking just because the Feds do it now they should always do it, or just because it is currently not shut down that it is something the Feds should be doing.

You speak of straw men...and yet you come in here with your off-topic bullshit and contribute nothing...so I think the only thing colossally stupid at the moment, in this thread, is you.

I was taking your side and responding to bo and Jamie's straw men arguments against your original post, dumbass

PE - if you disagree with the responders to an OP, then address them directly, as I directly addressed you. In than manner, we avoid confusion, dumbass.

(AndPE, I'm sorry...I do tend to be attacked for anything I post, so I responded as if the attack was directed at me. And yes, I admit it is my fault I get attacked. None the less...if you are more precise in your posts, you will avoid such confusion in the future.)

Thought it'd be clear considering I went over the specific programs/departments/etc. they cited...

By the way, all you little SotLs out there (last Sheep on the Left...) did you ever stop and scratch you head when Obama/Reid claim they refuse to negotiate on individual bills that funds parts of the government, because they claim they will *ONLY* consider bills that fully fund the entire government?

And because I know you are a little slow and the Huffington Post hasn't explained this to you yet, but President Obama and Harry Reid have *already* agreed to, passed and signed in to law partial funding of the government. IN other words, they are LIARS AND HYPOCRITES.

So how come when Obama and Reid lie to you, you smile and jack off a little harder instead of calling them terrorists and hostage keepers and accuse them of trying to hurt the little people?

For example, the NIH medical trials that are not being funded - THUS ENDANGERING LIVES of people AND CHILDREN in these studies - could be funded right now, because Republicans have offered the bill. Obama and Reid won't do it...because they require full funding of the government and ONLY full funding (so they say...) and yet they have funded 83% of the government.

So man up liberal Sheep...I know it's hard for you to admit when you are wrong, to admit you are being played like a fiddle...but you heroes on the left are using you as political pawns.

"Only non-essential workers were shut down, which gives some federal workers a sense of how unimportant they are to the rest of the world."

I don't have that sense. My job is important and my job is necessary, but my job is not essential to the implementation of The government. It's an easy distinction to make.

@Santa - "Important" and "Necessary" are quite subjective terms, to being with. But further, you openly admit your job has no essential function to the implementation of the Government. Soooooo....perhaps your job should be run by a private corporation, whatever it is. What makes you think that the Government can manage whatever it is you do better than private companies? If it is "Important" and "Necessary" then I'm certain some 1% would gladly take over and profit from it, and there's a damned good chance it will run better as a result.

After all, because of the incompetence of the government, you apparently are not allowed to do your important, necessary job.

ON the other hand, let's take Delphi Automotive Corporation. Big company with a lot of employees. Some number of year ago Delphi went bankrupt. As a result, they look at their employees, and determine who was necessry and important...those people *kept working*. The engineers that design and develop new products, the people necessary and important to run the manufacturing facilities, etc....they *kept working* through the bankruptcy and subsequent turn-around.

Perhaps if your job were privatized you would have the privilege of going to work on Monday.

The problem, of course, krellin, is that there are certain things that society needs that have no way to generate a profit and therefor would fail when implemented by the private sector in a capitalist market. It does not follow that these services are unimportant (which is indeed a subjective term).

Santa...you are 100% *wrong*. If is a sociatal *NEED*...then people will pay for it. You apparently live in this fantasy world where the government gives things to people for free, which *anyone* with a shred of intellectual integrity knows and admits is an absolute lie.

If you are paid for what you do by the government, then what you give me is not free. Just because I don't pay for it directly doesn't mean it's free. My tax dollars pay you, therefore society pays for it. It it is *needed* (as you assert), then when the government stops providing it, others will step in and do the job.

Case in point, FedEX...Government provides a necessary service - delivery of mail. Unfortunately, they were unable to provide to a level consistent to the needs of society, so other services, such as FedEX, came in to being and provides a competitive, and most likely superior product.

I have no doubt that if your particular branch of government was elminated tomorrow, your job would be replaced by a private sector employee *IF*...and that's a big *IF*...IF it is necessary and important.

Care to tell us what this oh-so-important, world-will-stop-and-people-will-die job function you perform that can't be replaced by the private sector, that is ONLY possible to be done by the government?

I am under no illusion that what I do is free. I also am under no illusion that what I do would be profitable. The word need was a bit much, if my job stopped existing tomorrow only a small segment of the population would notice. But my job is something that both sides of the aisle think is a necessary expense.

Lets use an example. If government got out of the cemetery business tomorrow, what private corporation would run Arlington cemetery? I mean technically the place could be made profitable or receipts could defray costs. They could charge admission or hold concerts on the grounds, maybe even start selling plots rather than giving them to any desiring veteren. But that would go directly against the purpose of Arlington, namely providing a hallowed ground for those who sacrificed for the country.

Now it could be true that a place like Arlington and the cemetery system in general could be run off private donations, but are we really going to rely on that? Would such donations truly provide the cemetery system what it needs to continue day-to-day operations? Maybe, but I don't think so. There you have a job that is not essential, but important, and felt by many to be necessary.

The reason why we send our tax dollars to monuments and cemeteries etc because there is a societal desire to respect and honor the memories of those who served, to say its a need is a bit much, but to say that it is important is quite accurate in my estimation as well as much of society.

The logic of the guy with the big brain:
PRIVATIZATION = Increased Efficiency, better value-for-money .......just better !!
If only it were that simple ..... but of course if this were the case would the tax-payer need to bail out private companies, no way Jose, these companies would never except state hand-outs, they are too good for that, too macho, too proud.
Also if they engage in corrupt or fraudulent activities they will will be immune from criminal prosecution because of their super-efficiency and superior management skills and ability to make everything better again.
It's politics out of a Rice Krispies box, if you start with a crazy suggestion defending it just makes you sound even more stupid, this is not a left or right argument, it's just simple intelligence.
Anyone who has work in the private company, especially the larger ones, know how wasteful and inefficient they are, investment banking banks are the worst.

The government shuts down "the ocean." It must cost too much to run the ocean!

Charter guides received a message from the National Park Service this week informing them that they are not permitted to take clients fishing in Florida Bay until the feds get back to work. That means that more than 1,100 square miles of prime fishing is off limits between the southern tip of the mainland to the Keys until further notice.

The closing affects not only fishing guides, but anyone with a license to conduct business in the park, including tour operators and paddling guides — anyone with a Commercial Use Authorization permit, said Dan Kimball, superintendent of Everglades and Dry Tortugas national parks.



http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/03/3668028_p2/shutdown-day-3-food-distributor.html

Santa - are you under some illusion that cemeteries are not profitable? lol Not a very good example.

That being said, Arlington is not a forest - it is as much a museum and an honorarium to the soldiers that protect this nation, and give their lives for our freedoms. Attach funding for Arlington to the military - since it is basically a continuation of a soldiers service to be buried and honored at rest there.

But funding the toll both and the gift shop at, say, Yosemite? No need for that to be Federally funded, since states, counties, and private parks exist all across this nation.

I look at something like the Detroit Zoo - which used to be owned and operated by the city of Detroit. Under government management, the zoo was a disaster, and on the verge of going under...until taken over by non-government agencies. Now we have a great zoo, it gets updates all the time (currently building/planning on building a great new penguin habitat)...in other words, private funding did the zoo a great deal of good.

Arlington? I have *no doubt* in my mind that veterans groups and good Patriotic citizens of this country would ensure that Arlington stayed open should the government relinquish their hold.

But I will give you this - there are things that are not being funded that both sides of the isle, and anyone with common sense, could probably agree about -- such as the NIH - which the Republicans have TRIED to fund (but Obama and Reid refuse to).

So - are you affiliated with Arlington?

@Nigee - who ever said tax payers *have* to bail out private companies? That is only a *rare* an offensive thing. The government has laws in place -- called BANKRUPCY - that is used when a company gets in financial troubles. PErhaps you didn't read about Delphi above. The airlines also have gone through bankrupcy. So your argument - that the government must bail out companies - is idiotic at best. Most Conservatives in this country bristle at the notion of government bailouts of corporations, and in fact *most* companies do not get bailed out.

Perhaps you would do well to study business -- most businesses fail in this country.

But on the other hand, I'll give you Hostess. Great company, great products. It went under. There was no government bailout. Instead, they sold off the assetts. And guess what? I saw Hostess products in the store yesterday, because someone bought the products they wanted to sell and started producing them again.

GM / Chrysler - instead of a government bailout, they could have gone through bankrupcy. It either would have worked, or it wouldn't have. If it hadn't worked, we wouldn't stop making cars. It just means Ford, Toyota, BMW, etc would have sold more cars, and the employees that lost their jobs would move to the new companies, who would suddenly find themselves in need of employees for all the extra production.

IN the past decade, we lost Pontiac and Oldsmobile as car brands, as well as others. No bailout...no government telling GM they had to keep those brands in existence...and some people moved from those brands to other organizations within GM. Others moved on to other jobs, because they were no longer needed there. But nobody demanded those brands be kept in place.

So...again...your argument holds no weight. But if you hate bailouts...then I expect you to start bad-mouthing Obama and the Democrats that pat themselves on the back for bailouts.

No I'm not affiliated with Arlington.

And while I'm sure that Arlington would, at least at first, be a cause celeb, remember that it is hardly only Arlington. Could private donations fund the entire ABMC (there are hundreds of cemeteries worldwide) while also supporting other similar services liberated from federal control (parks museums, the arts and humanities etc.) And more importantly how would the public regulate the management of such sites while in private hands? What would stop a private company from building a mall on the grounds of the cemetery? And btw funding for Arlington is attached to the military as of now.

And like I explained, private cemeteries are profitable (although I've never understood how that business model works in the long run). But Arlington and our cemetery system does not behave like a private cemetery. Burial and memorial is provided for free. It would not be profitable unless that changed, and if it did, would it still fulfil its purpose?

Well, again, as I stated above I consider the honor given to soldier buried in Arlington and other cemeteries to be a continuation of their service -- yes, that is my interpretation -- and as such I would not have a problem with the funding for military cemeteries being a part of military spending...in which case, they would be funded *today*, and this would not be a topic of discussion.

Every month I donate $25 to antiwar.com through an automatic donation from my credit card. The donations antiwar.com gets from a large number of smallish donations like mine are enough to sustain several fullish time employees and he 6,813th most popular website in the United States (according to alexa.com). If antiwar.com - an anti-war website that is hated by most leftists because it is run by some mean liberatarians - can survive on donations, I have no doubt that Arlington National Cemetery - one of the holiest sites in the American civil religion - could do the same.

The American battlefield monument commission, which maintains us military cemeteries over seas has a budget of 60 million. That doesn't even count the stateside cemeteries of which Arlington is one. It's going to be a bit more of a challenge than anti-war.com

And as I said, the cemetery system will be competing for funds from other liberated federal programs that promote the common good.

$60M = 5 million donors (less than, I believe, the total number of living retired Imperial Stormtroopers) at $1/month. Or 500,000 donors at $10/month. Fundraising chump change for such an easily recognizable (and popular) institution. And if you cut out all the graft, corruption, and inefficiency that inevitably crops up in government institutions, I'm sure it could could be run effectively for several millions less. No problem here.

FedEx is the same bad example as privatizing all schools. Both cherry pick to get better results than the government.

FedE picked shipping packages where they charge by weight and distance. Do you really think they would be as profitable if they also had to do regular mail and only get to charge the same for across town as for across the country. Package delivery services went after the segment where there was the most profit. They also have lousy delivery service even with GPS tracking as I got a package that belong on the next street and I live next to the street sign that should have told the driver he was in the wrong place.

Charter schools go after the best students. Most try to avoid anyone with a learning disability or would drag the average down. In Arizona the poorly written law allowing charters has let some rake in money with no accountability that is being spent for education or the students are meeting the academic standards of public schools.

"Do you really think they would be as profitable if they also had to do regular mail and only get to charge the same for across town as for across the country."

All of the "regular mail" I've gotten in the last 5 years has fallen into two categories: junk mail, and bills. Now I'm sure the vendors who send me mail would be willing to pay up to send me the monthly bill on a regular basis, but I expect some of the the junk mailers might get squeezed out of profitability. So the worst that's likely to happen if mail delivery was privatized would be that I get less junk mail. Tell me again what the negative is?

"They also have lousy delivery service even with GPS tracking as I got a package that belong on the next street and I live next to the street sign that should have told the driver he was in the wrong place."

People make mistakes. That includes government postal workers as well as private delivery company workers. Based on my personal experience, FedEx/UPS are about as accurate as the government postal system. Why this should count against public companies but never against government workers is something that has always puzzled me.

"Charter schools go after the best students. Most try to avoid anyone with a learning disability or would drag the average down."

And government schools try to shuttle all the disruptive/nonconforming students off to "alternative" schools. Same deal. Charter schools (in California, at least - and I imagine most other places) get paid by attendance, not results, the same as government schools. It doesn't matter how the student does in school so long as they have an ass in a seat they can get money for. I have a cousin with a "learning disability" who graduated from a charter school the same as her two non-disabled siblings - so much for that argument.

I think an important question for Western democracies is 'why are large privately owned companies so inefficient' in comparison to their govt run counterparts.
I think there are a number of reasons:-
1) Profit-making companies can generate greater cash flows increasing the risk of process inefficiencies being exacerbated and more money being spent or invested inefficiently.
2) Corporate culture - arrogant mgmt teams that focus to heavily on revenue and market share rather than costs or profitability.
3) Corporate greed - lots of workers only motivated by money and not necessarily by the job that they do e.g. making weapons or cigarettes or doing jobs that provide no value added to the health or wealth of the nation. If a job is non-vocational it is difficult to inspire the workforce to give you discretionary effort unless they are offered ever more amounts of cash to do this, this in inefficient and expensive.
4) Financial controls and budgeting - anecdotal evidence would suggest a lot (but not all) financial institutions failed in their ability to effectively manage their investment portfolios (there are notable exceptions).
5) Failure to innovate and read and understand market trends.
6) In some industries failure to employ women fully or meaningfully lead to inefficiencies. i.e. companies do not recognise that some key jobs can be better run by women (not just any woman though)
These things we know to be true so why do govt. funded programs come in for so much criticism, is it because we raise the bar in how much better we expect govt to perform compared to the private sector or is it an in-bred ignorance amongst some that everything done by an individual/privately funded is naturally more efficient and cost effective than those done by govt agencies..... how stupid is that argument !!

the private sector is more efficient than government. the inefficiency comes in when you have the government and private companies both involved. because then you can have the worst of both worlds. you have as much corruption as is rampant throughout government, but you also have an easy way for private individuals to launder that dirty money - though private profits.

anyway this government shutdown is extortion and i hope you all realize it. just to shove it in our faces they opened a new multibillion dollar nsa campus as the shutdown is happening. you have all these government websites with the servers running to show a page saying "you cannot visit here unless the government borrows more money from banks" (essentially) when it would not cost anything to keep those sites up. you have parks and things paying money to build fences around them. and paying security to patrol it, when it would be the same price to just have it open.

all it is is extortion. they take nearly all of the tax money and spend it on things the people do not want at all, like suppressing the people, spying on them, breaking laws or running the military or giving money to the banks, corrupt policies and regulations benefiting their campaign supporters, crap like this.

but then to convince the public that they need more money (even though they already took almost everything giving nothing in return) they keep all the crap going, the vast majority of the spending, the spending that people do not want, and just cut off what people actually need.

it is extortion.

another thing, why is the government borrowing money from the banks? can somebody tell me why? the media used to give us this bs that america was borrowing all its money from china (trying to hide the fact that america is actually borrowing it from the banks). at this point china is not borrowing money, they are taking money out. so where is the media going to america is borrowing it from? maybe they should admit that it is only being borrowed from the banks and the massively wealthy who control them.

but it is retarded to even do this. why borrow money? it makes no sense. oh there is a crisis, we cannot borrow any more! ok. then print it. what is the problem. this is insane. but no... printing is only reserved to the fed for the purposes of buying off the media or buying up companies, or artificially raising housing prices to keep americans homeless, or just giving more money to the banks. any purpose that benefits americans is just craziness.

Have they really taken down govt websites?

it is true

• nasa.gov: “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.”
• loc.gov: “Due to the temporary shutdown of the federal government, the Library of Congress is closed to the public and researchers beginning October 1, 2013 until further notice. All public
events are cancelled and web sites are inaccessible except the legislative information sites THOMAS.gov and beta.congress.gov.”
• archives.gov: “We are unable to blog, post to Facebook, or tweet during the Federal Government shutdown. (This does not apply to the Federal Records Centers.)”
• ftc.gov: “Unfortunately, the Federal Trade Commission is closed due to the government shutdown.”
• nps.gov: “Because of the federal government shutdown, all national parks are closed and National Park Service webpages are not operating.

that list is not exhaustive cause i know for example usda.gov is also down.

you can also check this quote

The determination of which services continue during an appropriations lapse is not affected by whether the costs of shutdown exceed the costs of maintaining services.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/02/government-will-shut-down-websites-even

for further evidence of the nonsense, there are parks that get no government funding at all, so it costs the government a lot of money to send in all those fences, security, forcefully evict all staff and volunteers and maintain a constant patrol to keep them closed, when, in fact, they take no federal money at all to operate.

http://freebeacon.com/fox-reports-on-ordered-closing-of-colonial-farm-which-receives-no-government-funding/

the world war two veterans maybe know how bs this all is, and how it is extortion, that is why they broke through the barricades at their memorial to get in. update on that, they are not linking the barricades together to make it impossible to get through them. all this is very expensive, but it is worth it for them if they can extort the public for trillions more.

correction they have now linked the barricades.together to prevent any more veterans from getting in because even the world war two veterans are fair game in this extortion racket

What happened to invading Syria and all the other proposals now the American government is partly shut down? Is it influenced at all? Is Syria under the same pressure it was before?

Just curious.

I assume it's under the same pressure as it was immediately before the shutdown (which isn't a huge amount). The Yanks have just raided Lybia and Somalia so it seems their ability to take action overseas if they really want to is unaffected.

Fair point. But how about their ability to do politics, if they can't even work it out on internal level?