Rep. Bob Good claimed the American people would not be adversely affected by a temporary government shutdown because, "most of what we do up here is bad anyway."
That might be true up in the republican side of Congress, but for the 3 million people working for the federal government that help make the country function? Absolutely bullshit. This guy is bad and he should feel bad.
And while that was truly awful, federal employees got back pay once the government reopened. The federal contractors who arguably do way more practical day-to-day work on behalf of the American people, went fully without pay, and were not able to recoup any of it.
Step 1: complain about government spending, claim that it creates untenable debt/deficit (they don't care which, their base doesn't understand the difference.)
Step 2: insist Dems just make cuts to social programs to curb debt/deficit. Dems at least partially cave to keep government functional.
Step 3: immediately push to cut taxes for the wealthy and big businesses, creating a massive deficit in the budget.
The GOP's core platform and greatest strength is lying and misinforming voters. Democrats consistently have lower deficits and lower taxes for almost everyone and still people think the GOP is the fiscally conservative party. I'm a young guy and have so many friends that always said Biden/democrats would raise their taxes - they'd never done their own taxes and had literally no idea.
The most fucked part of this is the only spending they consider superfluous is the spending that helps regular people. The republicans want to just funnel money to the rich donor class and fuck everyone else.
So little of what the government does is actually effective in helping common people. The amount that goes to their millionaire/billionaire buddies is absurd. As someone who often works in government contracting, the shit I've seen is ridiculous even when I'm the beneficiary of it.
Texan here. I realize this is a hypothetical, but please don't generalize. My ass would be fucked, and places like Austin and larger cities are bastions of blue. Unfortunately it's our rural trash that can't die off fast enough.
It really is and for reasons we may not be considering here in this thread.
In many authoritarian and fascist regimes, you want the public to become disenfranchised and depoliticized. You don't want them to have any interest in politics other repeating than the party line. It's easy if you can just go around saying well, they're all corrupt so don't worry about it.
Speak for yourself asshole, the most vulnerable populations among us are waiting for you to do your jobs. Typical GOP "The govt doesn't work and elect us to prove it" BS