US Federal Government Shutdown

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Spending bills originate with the House: it is the Senate's right to amend it.

My point: it cuts both ways. If the Senate is at fault for not passing the bill unamended, the House is at fault for ignoring the amendments and trying again to pass the unamended bill.

[Fisherking]

Spending bills originate with the House: it is the Senate's right to amend it.

My point: it cuts both ways. If the Senate is at fault for not passing the bill unamended, the House is at fault for ignoring the amendments and trying again to pass the unamended bill.

They are both at fault. Don’t get me wrong. Blaming one side and not the other is just ignoring reality and their silly political games.

Negotiation and compromise is what politics is about. That would occur if only one party had control.

We should be screaming at both Houses of Congress to compromise and get on with business. And tell the President to stop the games to make his side look good and lesson the impact.

The ACA is flawed and needs reworked, not necessarily to something the Republicans want but to something both sides can live with and actually help some people.

If you go through the provisions of the law I am sure you would agree.

[Husar]

But are the Republicans willing to compromise in a way that the ACA does get funded or do the Democrats just have to give up their most important goal while the Republicans give up some minor stuff that doesn't bother them much?

[Fisherking]

I don’t know about that. If the Executive Branch keeps trying to make people suffer from the closure much more they may just get a backlash.

In addition to closing boat launches and parking lots they have involved the military in preventing chaplains from performing Sunday services and now there is word they want to close the Gulf of Mexico! Or at least a sizable portion of it.

http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/10/05...-closure-ocean

They seem to have told Wisconsin to close their parks too, as they provide some funding but evidently the lemur state, or badger state, told them to take a hike.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Spending bills originate with the House: it is the Senate's right to amend it.

My point: it cuts both ways. If the Senate is at fault for not passing the bill unamended, the House is at fault for ignoring the amendments and trying again to pass the unamended bill.

Well, both of you are correct according to the Constitution. In practice, however, it has become the expected norm that the President proposes a budget which is then introduced in the House by someone form his (so far only his) party.



Ellis and Anderson, both conflict scholars, note in their book that there are two "macro" categories for conflict resolution: struggle and negotiation.

Struggle tends to be the choice by any and all conflicting parties until they become convinced that they cannot unilaterally impose their preferred resolution. Negotiation becomes the choice when the cost of struggle is too high or when the outcome of struggle efforts fall short. It is a sad truth that few parties opt for negotiation as a first choice.

So far, the costs have not become high enough to the participants either to force one side to capitulate or to shift their resolution efforts to negotiation.


Both sides are using the term negotiation, but they seek capitulation. There have been no negotiations thus far, only non-violent forms of "struggle."