Government shutdown nics

[ray h]

Actually.. it good that this country is going through this process. Hoping it is shut down for a while. The country will be fine and it may motivate the "takers" to do a reality check and think of ways to stop suckling at the tite.

If it goes long enough they will riot (because that's what they always do when they don't know what else to do) and either kill each other or starve.

[Dave_n]

One aspect you may not realize is the damage done to research at the NIH. In my division, which is the largest in the National Cancer Institute, only 16 people are "essential". These are either DVMs looking after experimental animals or MDs with responsibilities for on-going clinical trials in the NIH hospital. No new patients, no research going on to develop new treatments, etc. hope no-one has a relative that needs such treatments! Everybody else is furloughed, and by law, nobody can do any work at home, 2 year imprisonment/$5000 fine if you do. Dave_n

[fortysix]

One aspect you may not realize is the damage done to research at the NIH. In my division, which is the largest in the National Cancer Institute, only 16 people are "essential". These are either DVMs looking after experimental animals or MDs with responsibilities for on-going clinical trials in the NIH hospital. No new patients, no research going on to develop new treatments, etc. hope no-one has a relative that needs such treatments! Everybody else is furloughed, and by law, nobody can do any work at home, 2 year imprisonment/$5000 fine if you do. Dave_n

If they were doing it right, they'd be funding each department and organization separately, not this huge massive budget they got themselves stuck in. This is how budgets get huge and portions get overlooked, when it's all lumped in under the heading of *DEPT OF TREASURY*. If they look at a department's budget, line by line, and then fix it for them, trim the fat, ask what they did with the money last year, then ask the big question, what is the return on our investment, the budgets would get smaller or right-sized, we wouldn't have star trek movies, and there wouldn't be mass shut downs.

You're right, the NIH didn't do anything wrong (unless you guys are also making star trek movies), just like the parks service didn't do anything wrong, or any of the hundreds of organizations being shuttered today. Until the government starts asking the question about what return on investment they are getting from these budgets, and then itemizing and compartmentalizing, the behemoth will always go down in one piece, and everyone will have a piece in the suffering.