Officials said they were focused now on understanding the scope of the consequences and determining whether there is anything they can do to intervene.
January 5, 2019

For 40 years now, dirty f*cking hippies have been pointing out just what a disaster it is when Republicans try to "run government like a business."

We see those warnings coming to fruition with the Trump shutdown-- and Trump's gang of thugs, thieves, and buffoons are now floundering because they didn't realize how serious it would be. Via the Washington Post:

The Trump administration, which had not anticipated a long-term shutdown, recognized only this week the breadth of the potential impact, several senior administration officials said. The officials said they were focused now on understanding the scope of the consequences and determining whether there is anything they can do to intervene.

Thousands of federal programs are affected by the shutdown, but few intersect with the public as much as the tax system and the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the current version of food stamps.

The partial shutdown has cut off new funding to the Treasury Department and the USDA, leaving them largely unstaffed and crippling both departments’ ability to fulfill core functions.

The potential cuts to food stamps and suspension of tax refunds illustrate the compounding consequences of leaving large parts of the federal govern­ment unfunded indefinitely — a ­scenario that became more likely Friday when President Trump said he would leave the government shut down for months or even years unless Democrats gave him money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

You know what else they didn't know? That not funding SNAP doesn't just punish poor people, it hurts the retailers and stores that sell them food.

They didn't realize that shutting down the IRS meant people wouldn't get their refunds -- which of course has all kinds of ripple effects on the growth of the economy and may shave off as much as a point.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a top House conservative who had cheered Trump’s approach in the political confrontation, said he was unaware that there would be any impact on SNAP benefits.

He said he was convinced this money was automatically appropriated by Congress: “Food stamps go on regardless,” he said.

This is not the case, however, according to several senior administration officials.

Rule of thumb: Don't put people in charge of government who hate government, because they don't even know how it works. Yes, they're that f*cking stupid.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon