It's time to do away with the debt ceiling

The OP did specifically say “government employees”. Your point is fair though. But to me that is part of the risk one take in choosing their profession.

 

The dept ceiling is a stupid that just gives politicians another reason to fight it out and not get any real work done.

When they make an appropriations bill that exceeds the current debt they need to just raise the limit at the same time.

Quit wasting time and fix real problems!

 

Why don’t we shift this conversation to the fact that government shutdowns are totally avoidable circumstances that are the absolute direct FAILURE of congress to do it’s job?

 

Or they could be adults and write appropriations bills that stay within the debt ceiling. You and I can’t vote to give ourselves a raise everytime we get a wild hair up our ass, but congress can.

 

So balanced budget or nothing? Funny I don't recall you advocating for that when Trump was in the WH.

And congress's raises aren't even a hair on the flea on an elephant.

 

I absolutely criticized Trump for supporting spending. Better edeucate yourself before throwing out an accusation.
And I wasn’t referring to their personal salaries, which BTW don’t amount to a hair on a flea in an elephant compared to the money they make from corruption, insider trading, influence peddling, living well off their “campaign” donations.

 

Relying on the people who broke the system to fix it is our first (and biggest) mistake. Only the American voter can fix this, and both parties have so successfully divided us that's become impossible, too.

 

I don't quite think it's impossible but it is highly improbable. It will require third party candidates that don't leach off the fringes, but ones who can unite the moderates in each and get most of the independents.

I would be all over this, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

Last serious attempt was 1995.

 

Ok well if you mean when the contract or task order funding runs out, sure, that makes sense.

 

True, but he used custodians and food service workers as examples. Although the government operated food service facilities and used it's own employees for building maintenance at one time, today almost all of the employees responsible for those functions are employed by contractors rather than directly by the government and that's probably been the case for at least the last 30 years or so. I'm also not sure that low skilled low paid jobs can be categorized as professions. Usually people employed as food service workers or building custodians do so because they have no other alternative.

 

True but it seems that the overwhelming majority if not all government shutdowns are attributable to one of the two major political parties and it's almost always the same one and I might add that very often the same politicians who voted for the appropriations suddenly decide to oppose increasing the debt limit to fund them.

 

Well that didn’t last long.

 

our buildings are maintained by government employees. Food service, on the other hand, are contractors.

 

I think it depends on the building.

 

And it's pretty much accurate.

 

Again. There will be food workers and custodians that are employed by the federal government. But that is nitpicking. On a side note...it bothers me when people consider low skilled jobs as something that cannot be a profession. For some that is going to be their profession. The way they are able to provide for the community they live in. It really feels demeaning to view someone as having no other alternative. It is even more frustrating when public servants demean these jobs. As the people working these jobs are paying the salaries of the government workers.

 

Not surprising that you would agree

 

It's long past time to get rid of it.