Government Shutdown Far More Dangerous Today

Jeffrey Zients speaking at press conference - Wiki

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog

It is looking more and more like the budget showdown between the Democrats and Republicans will turn into a government shutdown 2011 by this weekend. The Obama administration has already started to inform federal workers who will be required to still come to work and those who will be told to stay home.

The Washington Post reported yesterday, “About 800,000 of the 2.1 million federal workers nationwide were expected to be furloughed, with exceptions for national security and other essential employees . . . . “If there is a shutdown, it would have very real effects on the services the American people rely on, as well as on the economy as a whole,” Jeffrey Zients, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters at the White House.”  (Click here to read the complete Washington Post story.)

During the last several , there have been a series of short-term spending bills to keep the government running.  The latest includes $12 billion in cuts offered up by the Republican controlled Congress that will buy another week to negotiate.  This time, the President is digging in his heels according to a Washington Times story yesterday, “Without a short-term extension, lawmakers face two options: either reach a deal on a broad bill to fund the government for the rest of this year, or else have the government shut down as of midnight Friday.  “If presented with this bill, the president will veto it,” the White House said in an official statement of policy objecting to the House’s offer. The White House said it was “a distraction from the real work” on reaching a broader agreement.” (Click here to read the complete Washington Times story.) 

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The U.S. Government Must Go!

Dees Illustration

Mike Rozeff
Lew Rockwell

A chorus of U.S. and international officials keeps chanting that "Gaddafi must go" because, they keep repeating, he has lost legitimacy.

Let’s turn the tables. How legitimate is the U.S. government? I’m not talking about the popularity of particular persons like Obama, Bush I, Bush II, or Clinton. Changing faces, political parties, and administrations in Washington is a lost cause. I’m talking about national government itself. Should Washington be dismantled? Has Washington lost legitimacy as a government? If so, as a remedy, as a guide to action, as an objective to work toward, the U.S. government must go!
There are many valid ways to criticize the U.S. government. Any small government or anarchist perspective gives rise to a critique. Any adherent of constitutionality has another critique. For example, Lysander Spooner’s critique is devastating. Anyone who looks to the government’s effectiveness in serving the public will have yet another perspective. Anyone who restricts attention to economic and monetary matters will find plenty to criticize. Anyone who focuses on rights and liberties will be able to make important criticisms.

Here my perspective is to question the legitimacy of the U.S. government. Legitimacy is the perspective being used loudly by many world leaders against Gaddafi. I wonder, can we camp on their grounds and turn their own ideas against them?

World heads of state do not usually shine the light of legitimacy on one another, much less on themselves. Oh no, they are very quiet and reserved in that area. They don’t want people questioning their legitimacy, so they don’t raise the idea. Libya is atypical. Some leaders are using the rhetoric of legitimacy against Gaddafi. They believe that they can confine its use to him. They believe that they can restrict illegitimacy to instances of outright violence and ignore hidden violence. This serves their purposes.

In the post-Soviet era, criticisms by world leaders of the U.S. tend to be restrained, muted and timid. The world’s states are essentially in cahoots with one another. Many are beholden to the U.S. or tied in via relations of one kind and another. They cannot be too critical. Many have their own domestic problems and don’t want to stir up nests of hornets.

We are not so confined. If we use Obama’s criterion that violence against one’s people is a sign of government illegitimacy, then how many world governments are themselves legitimate? They all use violence and the threat of violence to maintain themselves. The fact that the threats of violence are effective and prevent outright blood on the streets doesn’t remove the presence of violence as the government’s means of controlling its citizens. Once we look under the hood at the motor of government, we find violence. At what point does such violence mean that the government’s leaders or the government itself – its very form – have lost legitimacy?

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Obama, Republicans seek spending cut endgame

© AFP/Getty Images/File Spencer Platt

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama and his Republican foes, spurred on by archconservatives irate over gaping deficits, have until Friday to agree on what may be the deepest spending cuts in US history.

Key Democratic and Republican lawmakers, joined by top Obama aides, are inching privately towards a deal to fund the government to October 1 and avert a partial federal shutdown triggered when a short-term funding measure expires at midnight on Friday.

Republicans have publicly disputed a Democratic claim that the two sides have agreed to slash $33 billion (23 billion euros) and are now arguing over where to make the cuts, saying no single component is set in stone until a comprehensive deal is reached.
The outcome of the fight is sure to shape Obama's 2012 reelection prospects, and will help determine the political clout of the "Tea Party" movement that has demanded deep spending cuts in return for their support for Republicans.

In a rare moment of public agreement, Obama and Republican Speaker John Boehner both warned Friday against failure to reach a compromise -- though each gave a different reason for fearing a government shutdown.

Speaking after a new jobs report that found unemployment at a two-year low -- but still high at 8.8 percent -- the president warned that a shutdown could hamper the fragile US recovery.

"It would be the height of irresponsibility to halt our economic momentum because of the same old Washington politics," Obama said. "That could jeopardize the economic recovery."

Boehner called the jobs report "welcome news" but stressed that "Washington needs to do a lot more (to) get our economy moving again" and warned that a shutdown would carry a high price tag because of disrupted government contracts.

"Frankly -- let's all be honest -- if you shut the government down, it'll end up costing more than you save," he told reporters.

Boehner's comments came a day after scores of "Tea Party" members demonstrated a stone's throw from the US Capitol to demand that Republicans stiffen their spine and reject compromise with Democrats.

"It's time to pick a fight," Republican Representative Mike Pence told the rowdy crowd under a chilly drizzle, warning that the standoff was "a defining moment for the new (Republican) majority in Congress."

Pence and other speakers said they were willing to shut the government down if Democrats rejected what he called "a small down payment on fiscal discipline and reform" -- putting Boehner in a potentially tough spot, with 87 new House members who owe their November election in part to the Tea Party.

"We're going to fight for the largest spending cuts that we can get, and I'm hopeful that we'll get it as soon as possible," Boehner promised Friday.

A day earlier, the speaker had sounded more defensive, saying Republicans "can't impose our will on the Senate" and only control the House, which passed $61 billion dollars in cuts early this year.

If the $33 billion figure anchors the final deal, Republicans could credibly claim a victory over Democrats, who condemned such a figure in February as "extreme" and "draconian."

But Democrats have vowed to hold the line against what Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday called "ridiculous" Republican proposals, notably one that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

And Boehner may need moderate Democrats' help to muscle the compromise bill to passage -- something he can count on if the deal is "reasonable," according to number-two Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.

Obama on Friday expressed optimism that a final compromise is "within reach" even though "there's still details and differences to work out."

But in separate phone calls to Reid and Boehner on Saturday, he told them that budget negotiators were "running short on time."

The president told the congressional leaders that he had directed White House budget negotiators "to work hard over the weekend with the appropriators to help reach resolution on the composition of those cuts," a White House statement said.

Meanwhile, Boehner, delivering a weekly Republican address on Saturday, disputed the claim that the sides had agreed on a number for cuts.

"You've heard Democrat leaders claim an agreement has been reached on this issue. But let me be clear, there is no agreement," he said.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Oakland gardener questions need for permit to sell produce

Urban Agriculture/Wikimedia Commons

Matthai Kuruvila
SF Chronicle

Novella Carpenter took over a vacant lot on a hardscrabble corner of West Oakland eight years ago and turned it into a working farm of vegetables, goats, rabbits and, sometimes, pigs.

Carpenter milked goats, made cheese and ate much of the produce. She also wrote a popular book, "Farm City," about the experience and became an icon of the Bay Area's urban farming movement.

But the future of her Ghost Town Farm is in question. This week, Oakland officials suggested it may need to close. The reason: She sells excess produce and needs a costly permit to do so.

"It seems ridiculous," said Carpenter, 38. "I need a conditional use permit to sell chard?"

The news stunned the region's urban farmers and their supporters, who questioned how a fundamental human task that goes back millennia could become illegal.

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