If you are not familiar with politics you will never know how often riders are in every bill. Much of our political process today is more about making a point versus doing what’s in the best interest of the country. I’ve spent 22 years in the political mecca and I’ve seen it all. The problem I have with this potential shut down is that this IS really about ideology as Senator Reid has sad, but it is also about making a point. No one really knows what the agencies do for the country, because they rarely spend the time doing their own research. At this point the cuts proposed are just about making a symbol of ideologies and not about what should really be done. We are missing that with all the noise..
Climate Riders Invite a Midnight Shutdown
Urgent efforts to avert a government shutdown at midnight faltered yesterday over Republican initiatives to freeze climate rules, a challenge to the president’s environmental priorities at the outset of his re-election bid.
Controversial policy provisions meant to defund U.S. EPA’s rulemaking for greenhouse gas emissions and abortion programs are the key obstacles to negotiating a government funding package through September, Senate Democrats and administration officials said yesterday.
“The numbers are basically there,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said of the $33 billion that Democrats are willing to cut over the next six months. “The only thing holding up an agreement is ideology.”
Federal agencies are running on funding fumes, and the White House issued a stark warning to public employees that using BlackBerrys is forbidden during a shutdown. EPA officials, meanwhile, carved out a four-hour window for workers to rescue plants and other personal belongings from shuttered public buildings.
“It is illegal to volunteer,” Jeffrey Zients of the White House Office of Management and Budget, who’s overseeing shutdown plans, said of an estimated 800,000 public 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.”
