The USPS is mandated by the Constitution. It receives no tax revenue & is considered government when it appeals to Congress & not government when it appeals to Congress. The only reason it seems to totter on the edge of insolvency is because Congress requires the USPS to pay 5 billion a year into an insurance fund which doesn't need it. No other department has this requirement. & it is required to show a profit every 5 years. It is unjust to be sure.

yup, that'll do it.

as of last august, there were 21,995,000 americans employed by the federal government. in addition to the direct effect the shutdown has on the half of them being required to work without pay (and those not being allowed to work, and thus not paid) there are all the citizens SERVED by those people who are ALSO affected. if the shutdown goes past february, my guy and i won't have anything to eat because we won't get our paltry serving of food stamps. there is no "just" the government workers.

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@genessa I didn't mean to discount the folks who are not getting the services they need. I was only trying to point out that if more services were affected that impacted a wider portion of the population we would see a quicker end to the shutdown. The news media seems to be focused on the plight of the unpaid workers more than the people who are going without services. If the TSA staff were not working, every airport would be shut down and then we would see some action to end this mess.

@ATDayHiker i getcha. but a lot more people ARE affected, even just directly, over 21 million people is a lot of government workers. as for tsa staff, putin would be giggling, and trump is not the only idiot in putin's pocket; mcconnell is in there too. whether he is giggling or gagging, he is going along with the travesty. i don't see him taking action just because things are worse than he imagined. he already knows they're bad. he already knows they could get worse. he doesn't care. he isn't missing any meals.

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@genessa Correct, the longer this goes on the more it affects mote and more people. He's digging a hole for himself but then he can't reason past the next few minutes anyway.

Agree, but, more and more people will turn against der fuhrer and he can't stand any rejection

@starwatcher-al true except there is a caveat: his staff never tell him about the rejection. he thinks america adores him. who's the cutest widdle baby in the whole wide world? widdle donny is! and then he burps and smiles, or is it still gas?

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