Disaster diverted or defined? Breakdown of the Bill

So what happened? The government is back up and running, everyone is getting paid for the time it was closed EXCEPT the private companies that were forced to close their doors. Sigh of relief? Disaster diverted? Not so sure about that. Citizens of this country were taken for an emotional roller coaster ride while Congress fought using us as their pawns.

The House of Representatives legally, are the only ones allowed to create a budget bill. They are the group, by design, that represents the American people the most. The Senate is only supposed to vote on what the House decides on. President after that. Instead, after loosing its patience with the House, the Senate created a bill and it went from there. Reports that the Senate agreed the country is saved, was confusing to many because that was supposed to be step 2 not step 1.

Now for the bill that was signed, here are what I thought were the highlights.

www.cnn.com... eal/index.html

Section 106 is referred back to several times. it just states they are putting everything off until January 15th unless an agreement is reached.

Section 109 I am going to quote.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint resolution, except section 106, for those programs that would otherwise have high initial rates of operation or complete distribution of appropriations at the beginning of fiscal year 2014 because of distributions of funding to States, foreign countries, grantees, or others, such high initial rates of operation or complete distribution shall not be made, and no grants shall be awarded for such programs funded by this joint resolution that would impinge on final funding prerogatives

After that, there is a whole lot of legal speak for everyone gets the money and pay they missed out on during the shutdown.

Then, Page 13 section 123 $775mil is upped to $2.9billion. Federal land recreations enhancement act got an extra year of help, Department of interior Wildlife fire management got an extra 36 million, Department of ag - wildlife fire management got an extra 600million, widow of a Senator who passed away despite her 52million dollar inheritance got 172,000 like the widows are supposed to get though why its included here confuses me..

As for the Affordable care act aka Obamacare, people have to prove they they need help paying for it before it gets paid for by someone other than them.

Now for the second half. Page 24 section 1002 "Default Prevention Act of 2013"

In 3 days the president could submit a written certification saying that without a suspension of the limit (14.294 trillion) the "Sec. of Treasury would be unable to issue debt to meet existing commitments"

"SPECIAL RULE RELATING TO OBLIGATIONS ISSUED DURING SUSPENSION PERIOD - effective February 8, 2014" Basically states all Obligations will be paid regardless.

Then on page 28 it goes on to restructure how the House does things in order to make things move faster. Time limits, if not adhered too, the committee is discharged from further consideration.
Then it goes on to limit discussions. No arguing, no allowing reconsideration of votes. Only 2 hours of debate allowed. It goes on to the Senate. Motion to proceed is not debatable. They have 10 hours to consider it. If President vetos, debate on the Veto in the Senate is limited to 1 hour.


That's it. I think this bill and the past few weeks have been the definition of disaster. Disaster being defined as our government. But, there were a lot of people and groups who really made out financially from this. This whole thing cost us more than just keeping things open! Crazy!

Oh just reading this gives me a headache. I am still trying to process the entire thing. So you have to prove you need assistance paying for Obamacare before someone else will... so is that going to be built into the already defunct website, how are you supposed to prove it, is it going to get figured out by the Dec 15 deadline?

SO many questions for me in there. Thanks for that info

ValentineWiggin
how are you supposed to prove it,

YOU don't prove it, apparently its up to the IRS and Attorney General from what I could gather. That being said probably another form to fill out.

I think this just proves the US is stuffed.
It is so broken, rather than try to fix the problem the government has borrowed more to stay it off.
The sad thing is the collapse will be far worse when it happens.

reply to post by borntowatch


I agree. This didn't fix anything. Just made things worse. The " Why fix it when you can just postpone that hard work another day" line of thinking is maddening.

mrsdudara

ValentineWiggin
how are you supposed to prove it,

YOU don't prove it, apparently its up to the IRS and Attorney General from what I could gather. That being said probably another form to fill out.

And this is all supposed to work out magically by Dec 15. Oh good Lord. That sounds like so much fun.

The disaster was just postponed, next time it will be worse. They can't rise the debt ceiling forever. USA will hit the debt ceiling again in February 2014, and government is funded only to 15th of January, there is change for another shutdown then.

I have to say though, section 109 has me confused. I cant make heads or tails of it. It almost sounds like they are saying all things expensive are done come the first of the year???