September 21, 2024 • 52 mins
Every year Congress decides how the federal government will spend money. Simple enough, but in practice politics tend to mess it up. Sometimes it gets so messy the budget doesn’t get passed and parts of the government shut down. Then the hurting begins. Learn all about it in this classic, always timely episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, they're friends. It's me Josh. For this week's select
I've chosen our September twenty nineteen episode on government shutdowns. Sadly,
this is such a perennial topic we should re release
it every couple months. It's a good thing to understand
so that you can be good and ticked off at
your elected officials any time of shutdown happens, because, as
we learn in this episode, they are totally avoidable. So enjoy.
(00:24):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. So I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck Bryan, there's Jerry over there,
and this is the podcast, Like I said, in particular,
it's the Stuff you Should Know podcast. So if that's
not where you're here to listen to, you're in the
wrong place.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And if you don't want to listen to us talk
about government shutdowns, then you're in the wrong place.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well, who doesn't want to know about government shutdowns?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah? I agree. Educate yourselves right as a matter of fact,
because it's gonna happen again soon enough.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
That's exactly right. That is why I wanted to do
this episode. Yeah, because I've been meaning for us to
do this for years now, and every time we do it,
and it's like, every time I go to do it,
say let's do a government shutdown episode, I think, is
what I'm trying to say. Sorry, I just drank a
Red Bull because I was about to fall over and
now I'm talking really fast. Just give me like ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Okay, and you're drinking a Coca Cola.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Well, we don't have zero here anymore. This is all
we have.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We want that extra caffeine kick on top of the
red bull.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I think I have just this twelve ounce can. It's
not even gone, and I think I've burned a hole
in my stomach.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, it's crazy but delicious.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It is delicious, I'll give you that. But Coke zero
is really delicious too, for being a diet cola at
any rate.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Government shutdowns you were saying, Yeah, every time we go
to do this, it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Shuts down, so it looks like we're chasing a trend,
so we have to wait. Yeah, I'm like, finally the
time is right, because.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It wouldn't be cool to do one in the midst
of one.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Is that the definitely not gotcha? No, that's like buying
a T shirt at a concert and then putting that
T shirt on and looking around like, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
At the concert right with that horrible smell. Oh yeah, shirt,
especially concert t shirts that are printed out of you know,
straight chemicals.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Out of Buffalo Bill's basement, made of skin.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Man. He's been on my mind a.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Lot because of the Egean episode.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, because that, and then I just saw on the
movie Crushers page someone posted a funny little thing that
was a Buffalo Bill tender profile. This was really funny.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I got to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And then there was something else from this past weekend.
There was a lot of Buffalo Bill happening. He's everywhere.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, yeah, remember we used to send each other that
that one screenshot. Yeah, that's great. Ye back when we
shared a cubicle wall.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I know, and it was easy enough to do that
back then.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Now we have gold plated airon chairs, no walls anywhere.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I'd take a regular eiron.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I think that's what you're sitting in right now.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I'm quite comfy.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So anyway, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
We should edit all that other stuff out, don't you think.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Or get money from Red Bull Coca Cola and Aaron,
you're right, and Buffalo Bill right, or the Buffalo Bill's
football team.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Dang Man, you just really pulled it together with that
last one. So we've been through some shutdowns in our time.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Chuck, sure, in our day.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, as a matter of fact, you'd think based on
how common they kind of seem. I mean every few years.
There's like the federal government, I should say, for our
fellow listeners outside of the United States, our government is broken, right,
We're talking about government shutdowns, and it's a lot like
what it sounds like. I mean, we'll get to the
(03:56):
nuts and bolts of it, obviously, but it's basically where
the federal government, not state governments, but the federal USA
government parts of it just stop functioning, right, And the
reason they stop functioning is because those agencies that those
parts of the federal government have not been funded. And
(04:17):
since they haven't been funded by law by Congressional Act
from years back, they are not allowed to pay workers
any longer. They're not even allowed to accept volunteer work
from their workers. So with no workers, that means the
agency shuts down, and that's a government shutdown. That's what
we're talking about. Literally parts of the government shut down.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, and again we will get into all the nuts
and bolts, but it shuts down because of funding gaps,
and those funding gaps happen almost always because of entrenched politics.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, it's two sides playing chicken over the budget, right,
and when the government shutdown happens, neither side blinked.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right. And it's also very important to point out that
a big part of government shut downs is trying to
get the other side to maybe not accept blame, because
no one ever does. It seems like sure, but at
least the perception in the general media that this person
or this side is the one to blame.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah, and more often than not, public polling shows that
it's Congress that almost always takes to blame. Oh really,
until this last one, it was always Congress, right, no
matter what, Which is funny that they would try to
pull us off because it's so politically risky.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, because it's.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So damaging on an individual level among like federal employees
or just average Americans, but also on a national level.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, our economy takes a huge, shit.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Huge hit that we just never regain.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
All Right, that's a great setup.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I think so too, So Chuck, to start, I think
we should talk about how money moves around the federal government,
don't you.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, And this is again, if you live outside the
kind and even if you live in the United States,
you may not understand what power of the purse means.
But in the United States and in the US Constitution,
Article one, section nine claws seven.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, not even the Bill of Rights, like the Constitution. Yeah, Like,
this is one of the first things they thought about.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It was Congress who was granted control over the money.
So the President and can't just fund something. The Senate
can't just fund something. Everything has to be agreed on
and they can't spend a dime without Congress's express approval.
Through this process, we're going to get into called appropriations.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Right, and so in the Constitution it just said the
Congress is the one that approves all money. Everything comes
through Congress. Right.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, we should read that though, because it does have
one funny line. You go ahead from the Constitution, no
money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence
of the appropriations made by law. So far, so good, Okay.
Regular statement of account of receipts and expenditures of all
money shall be published from time to time. It's very
non specific.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Whenever you get to it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Why not like you know, in November of every year.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I honestly don't know, because I mean, from time to
time makes it seem unimportant.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It makes it seem what's the word when you don't
have to do something, makes it seem non mandatory?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah? Optional, optional, Sure, that's the word. I know you
so well after all these years. So that's the It's
from Article one of the Constitution, and presidents from seventeen
seventy eight onward said, Okay, I can work with that.
There's a huge loophole here, like no, I can't. I can't,
(07:45):
you know, spend money myself, Like I can't pay anybody myself.
I have to wait for Congress. But that doesn't mean
I can't like get the work done first and then
when it comes time to pay, I can just direct
this contractor vendor, whoever, militiaman to Congress to go get money.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, which is really I mean that is so United
States government to be like, well, I'm technically not writing
the check. I've just engaged someone services and now we
owe them this money.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, Congress, pay this guy's yeah, yeah, he did what
he's saying he did. And so there was this representative
in Virginia who was not happy about this, yeah, this
kind of precedent that had been adopted by the executive branch.
This representative said in eighteen oh six that presidents were
acting like a saucy boy whose wealthy grandfather was going
(08:35):
to cover his needs, and that that was the case.
So eventually Congress said, we got to close this loophole,
and they did in eighteen eighty four.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I think, yeah. The Anti Deficiency Act basically said, no,
you can't just pay the guy to paint your house
and then stand there tapping your toe looking at the
guy with the checkbook.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Right exactly. As a matter of fact, they said, you
can't spend a single dime that Congress hasn't already appropriated
for that. That's right, You just can't do it so
much so that again, you can't even accept volunteer work
unless it is basically to protect life, for public safety,
something really really important.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
But when we say we fund you, Congress funds the
executive branch, all the agencies in the federal government, we
really mean it. And that's what the Anti Deficiency Act really.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Said, yeah, but it would take until nineteen seventy four
when Richard Nixon signed the Congress Budget and Impoundment Control Act.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
It's a barn burner, yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's what really changed everything, and that's what kind of
laid out this process that we still work with today
or don't work with, or sit on our hands and
hold our breath.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right. Ideally, it functions kind of clunky even in its
best form, Yeah, but purposefully so it's to keep Congress
from being profligate with it spending sure, right, Like I mean,
it's to say, this group over here and this group
over here, we're taking the same task and making you
guys do it twice separately and then come together and
(10:10):
hammer out the details. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
It's really discouraging to look at the history of our
country and the you know, the idea should be that like,
all right, we know that in this country we have
a lot of people that feel one way about a
lot of stuff, a lot of people that feel the
other way, and the government's job should be to come
together and negotiate and find nice middle grounds. And it
seems like it's more like the government just finds loopholes
(10:33):
and is sneaky and underhanded to find workarounds from actually
trying to work together and find a middle ground.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Right stinks.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Sick of it.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I'm I'm pretty fed up with government too. I think
most people in America and I would gather the UK too.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
All right, oh man, especially right now. So here's how
it happens. Every year, the two chambers of Congress, they
have to agree on a budget for the discretionary spending,
which is I think only thirty percent of the overall
budget is discretionary. Everything else is mandatory or nondiscretionary, and
(11:09):
that means stuff that you just can't not pay.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
For, right and it's mostly things like Medicaid, Medicare, social
security entitlement programs right to where these are mandatory programs
that are created by an Act of Congress that says
whatever these programs need to run and operate, that's how
much Congress gives them. There's no spending levels, there's no
(11:33):
you know what about this is like you can go
in in monkey with the operation by congressional act. But
as far as spending and budget goes, whatever they need
they get.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
The other stuff, the discretionary stuff, that's what'd you say
about thirty percent of the budget.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
It's thirty percent, but that's still like in twenty eighteen,
that was one point two trillion dollars, And it's really
important stuff. It's not like the mandatory spending is the
only important stuff. We're talking about the f DA, Homeland Security, TSA,
the NIH, National Parks, the IRS.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
The Department of Defense.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, big time stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Basically everything except Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Oh really is that seventy percent essentially? Jeez?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I know.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
All right, So this all starts this appropriations process. It's
laid out for the first Monday in February, and this
is the deadline. It lines up with the deadline for
the president to submit their budget to Congress, which you
always hear this is a president's budget. The president oversees
stuff and approved stuff. But the president's not in there
(12:39):
with the calculator crunching numbers.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
No, No, it's the Office of Management and Budget that
does it for the president, that's right, But it's under
the president's direction. The president says, I really want to
do this. Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore. Right,
But the thing is, it's almost like a little kid
going through the Montgomery Ward wish Book and then writing
their list in crayon that has about the same polling
as the president's budget. Yeah, it really is saying this
(13:03):
is what the president wants to do, and then Congress
either says these are good ideas or they say we're
not listening to that at all, because it's not legally
binding in any way.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
There's probably in fact party line templates. They just throw
down like a mad lib and they tweak it a
little bit, but they say like, oh, here's the Republican
style budget, and here's the Democratic style budget Obama or Trump,
and now do your minor tweaks.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I think that is kind of it's got to be
because it's a huge, massive document.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, they can't like start from scratch every time, can they.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Know it's got to be like the first few pages
are what really count, you know what I mean? It's
got to be.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
But again, this is like they call it in this article,
like the wish list of funding priorities. And that's a
good way to put it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
The Montgomery Ward Wishbook wish list.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I was a Sears kid.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I didn't discriminate. I went through all of them to
make sure all my basis cover.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, we didn't even have Montgomery Wards, so I never really,
I've never laid eyes upon that catalog.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It was it was good. It was a good one.
I put it up against the Series one.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah we had seers. And then I guess Service Merchandise
was another.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I remember that. Didn't they sell everything from like diamond
rings to Cassio keyboards.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Oh, they sold everything. I think I bought my very
first guitar from Service Merchandise, oh, and returned it like
a week later because it was creddy broken, and I
went to a real guitar store.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Sam Ash No.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I actually I remember I went to dirt Cheap Music
on Memorial Drives not there, and again shop Local. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, dirt cheap buzz marketing for a business that is
no longer around.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So they've got this wish list. Then it goes onto
Congress and they have to pass what's called a concurrent
budget resolution.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Right, and Congress can totally ignore the president's budget. They're
taken into consideration if the If Congress is in the
controlled by the same party the president is, the president's
wishes are probably going to be taken into consideration. But
ultimately Congress says, this is what we want to do.
And from what I can tell, when they come up
with this concurrent.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Budget right, yeah, concurrent budget a cbs R Current Budget Resolution.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It's basically just setting the spending for the year. Right.
That's that's all that is, Isn't it like this the
cap on what the federal government can spend entirely?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I think. So it's just that broad agreement of the
total amount of.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Spending, Okay, and then it starts to get divvied up.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, they're not in the weeds at this point. No,
but they're supposed to pass that by mid April, and
that's where they set these spending levels for twenty categories.
And this is where you know, this is where it
starts to break down, or not breakdown, but like in
a bad way. But they start to break it down
because it's such a massive thing. You got to break
(15:50):
it down in the smaller departments.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right. So Congress says, here's the total amount of money
that we're going to spend this year, and it goes
to the Appropriations Committee in the Senate and the Appropriations
Committee in the House, and then each of them says, Okay,
we've got this hole let's divvy it up into twelve slices,
not necessarily equal slices. I think they'd probably be pretty lazy.
(16:15):
But they say, you know, Agriculture and Rural Development, you're
going to get this much this year, Commerce, Justice, and Science,
you're going to get this much, like this slice of
the pie. And they do that over twelve departments that
roughly correspond to the different cabinet posts in the federal government.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
That's right. And it's up to those subcommittees, those twelve
different ones, once they get their little slice of pie,
to then decide how to eat that pie. Yeah, I
think it's that piece of the pie.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
There's an appropriation subcommittee that says this is how you're
going to spend this, that's right, and they have hearings
and stuff like that, where like the heads of these
departments come and say, we really need this. We've got
some really exciting stuff coming up. Give us some more
money where we figured out how to sharks and hunt
dolphins with spear guns, and we really want to get
into that this year.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Or you know, we really need to build this thing,
or the military really needs to upgrade that thing.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Right, stuff like that, and then these appropriation subcommittees, each
one dedicated to a group of agencies or a couple
an agency, just a single one, say okay, this is
how we're going to spend this money. And then once
that happens in the House and the same thing happens
in the Senate, those two groups, the appropriation subcommittees for
each of these twelve slices.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Of pie, come together ideally.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And they say, well, we came up with this. What
did you guys come up with And they say, well,
we came up with this, and we're off by seven
billion dollars. How are we going to figure this out?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
That's great, only seven billion.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Dollars, right, that's nothing these days.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Well, they negotiate with each other to come up with
a joint spending bill. I imagine those meetings are contentious
and tough. Sure, and eventually, though ideally, they negotiate that
spending bill. Then that gets sent to the President and
they can veto that or sign that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Right. So, remember there's twelve there's actually twenty four of
these going on over twelve different slices of pie. And
when they come back together and form twelve different appropriations resolutions,
they can say we're done. This is good let's send
it to the president and the president can sign that.
If things are going along really smoothly and Congress wants
(18:24):
to show off, they'll say, we want to get all
these together in one package. We're going to present all
twelve to the president and the president can either sign
or veto. So they could the president can sign or
veto each one separately, in small groups or as a whole.
As a whole is called omnibus.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah. If you ever heard the term omnibus spending bill
and you're like, what in the world is that, that
just means it's everything grouped together?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Right, And so one reason that you would go through
the headache of trying to put all twelve of those
appropriations bills into one package is that if there's something
in one of those appropriations bills that you want, yeah,
you got a lot more leverage than the other eleven
that you can trade from the budget as a whole
to get that thing out or get this thing in.
If it's one appropriations bill, you have much less leverage.
(19:12):
So that's why they would go to that trouble. But
that's fairly rare, I believe.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, And this is all due by October first, because
that is the beginning of the federal government's fiscal year
is October one. And since we've been doing this in
modern times, I believe nineteen seventy seven was when we
started this process. Congress has passed all twelve by October first,
by that deadline only four times.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Four times, that's right.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So we'll take a break and we'll discuss what happens
all of the other times right after this.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
So okay, Congress comes along. Also, big shout out to
Dave Ruce. This is his first article that we're doing
an episode on.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, Dave is one of the great writers from howsoftworks
dot com that we long admired over the years and
tapped him to do some stuff for.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Us, tapping him.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
We're tapping him and he's tapping back. It's great.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
We've got a pretty great little stable going here. We've
got Dave Rus, Julia Layton, and the Grabster all writing
for stuff you should know right now.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
That's right, And I think if they keep up the
good work, then that's all we need.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, I think so too, because we still put together
our own stuff too, Yes we do. I want to
give us a pat on the back as well.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
All right, that's fine, all right, So I just pulled
the muscle in my arm.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I can't write this week. So, like we said before
the break, this has only happened four times, and since
nineteen seventy seven, that all twelve appropriations bills were passed
by that October one deadline.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So when it comes to October second, it doesn't mean
if we haven't passed those appropriations bills, it's like everything
just stops working right, Because if you pay attention to
the news, you will notice that there's something called a
continuing resolution. So this can happen for a lot of reasons.
One good and sort of non offensive reason could be that, man,
(21:40):
we were really close and we're almost there. We just
need another week or the weekend. We'll work through the
weekend even to get this done.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Right. A good but offensive reason is because someone farted
and everyone cleared out of the chamber and missed the deadline,
so they had to do a continuing rest.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Oh no, I mean if they're close and they just
need a few more days to work it out, then
that can happen. They'll pass the continuing resolution, which means
everything stays the same. You don't get any more money,
or you don't get money taken away. Just keep like
operate as usual.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Right, you can't increase spending. You can spend differently or whatever,
but you can't spend above the levels of the previous
fiscal year. No, you're you're currently in right, that's right, Okay,
I'm with you. I think a continuing resolution, whether it's
one for a day or for a year, and there
have been ones that have been like year long continuing resolution.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Yeah, there's no limit. You can pass them forever long
you think you need.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Right. It does show that negotiations are still ongoing. They
haven't broken down, they just haven't reached the point where
they're in agreement yet.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
The problem comes when they stop issuing continuing resolutions.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
That's right. Day through. In a few pretty cool facts here,
one hundred and eighty six continuing resolutions have been since
nineteen seventy seven, and one hundred and seventeen or those
of those, or those have been since nineteen ninety eight. Yes,
so it's taken them one hundred and seventeen times that
(23:12):
they could not work it out since nineteen ninety eight.
That's a lot.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, that's it is but if you think about it,
the it's about evenly split. Well, no, it's not evenly split.
It's like seventy to I think sixty nine to one
hundred and seventeen over two twenty year periods. Oh yeah,
and it does seem to be getting worse, But that's
kind of lopsided because in twentyd and one there were
twenty one of that one hundred and seventeen. Yeah, twenty
(23:39):
one of them all came in two thousand and one. Yeah,
So I'm not quite sure about this, but I wonder
is the a number and increase in continuing resolutions? Is
that like a barometer for government or how government's working.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Uh? I don't know, because.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I wonder because I mean, ideally, like they would get
all this done by the October first deadline every time.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Well it depends because as this points out, like sometimes
it is over the weekend and it's just a few
days and they're like really close to having it worked out.
So to me, that's not the biggest deal in the world.
That doesn't mean the government isn't functioning well, right, I
mean as well as it ever does, sure, am I right? Yeah,
But like in two thousand and seven, eleven and thirteen,
(24:26):
they were all year long. There were no appropriation spills.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Right, they just said we're just going to repeat last.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Year, or no real appropriation spills, I guess right.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
They just they just said, remember the spending levels from before.
Go with god, that's what you got again this year.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Because that means agree, Yeah, that's when things are bad.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So continuing resolutions too, like it doesn't affect spending levels
or it doesn't increase them. It can't, I wonder. I
don't know if it can decrease them or not. I know,
you it just basically says same spending levels last year,
so maybe it can't decrease them either.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I think can't decrease. I think it's just your current
funding is locked.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Right, But you can attach writers onto continuing resolutions.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, these policy writers, those can be like the make
or break. And if it's clean, which I don't know
how often that happens. I'd be curious to see a stat.
But if it's a clean policy writer, that means it
has nothing else, or a clean.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
CR CR it doesn't have any policy writer, that's right.
So a lot of times though, if there's a policy
writer on a CR, it might be like, Okay, we
can't come to an agreement about medicaid funding abortion that
was a big one in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, but
in this same appropriations bill that we're haggling over, there's
(25:47):
this other thing that's like super critical. It's like local
hospitals aren't going to get any n Q funding and
it's about to run out. So we need to increase
the NQ funding for low local hospitals, and we'll attach
that as a policy writer to this continuing resolution because
this is kind of an emergency and it doesn't really
have anything to do with the contentious part that that's
(26:09):
keeping the policy or the appropriations bill from being passed. Right,
So that's I think usually what happens with that.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
You know what show really nails this stuff is Veep.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
For all it's like, you know, comedy and funny stuff.
It seems like they really nail kind of what it's
like in Washington. Sure, because there's a lot of talk
of this kind of stuff. Yeah, clean bills and writers
and who's on whose side and can we sway this
one person in our darker side?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah, a lot of just dirty, dirty language.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Oh yeah, god man, Julie Louis drive us.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
She is a She's an international treasure totally.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
At one interaction with her briefly when in La and
my friend's building in Los Philos, the Hollymont Building. He
lived there, Scotty, you know, Scotty sure, and we had
a case of beer and a pizza and some snacks
and we were going.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
She showed up, is like, where's the party.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Well, that's sort of what happened. We were going up
in the front of the building and she was shooting
New Adventures of Old Christine right there at the entrance,
and we literally walked by her and they were like
putting on her makeup, like right in front of They
were right about to go, and she said, who are
those guys? I want to go with them? Where are
you guys going? And of course we were like, come
on up.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And then an electrician knocked on our door and asked
to put a light in his apartment shining out the window.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
How much did you charge them?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, we didn't. We were just like, come on in.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
And then Eric Estrada showed up and arrested you.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
All right, so where are we here?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
So I'll tell you where we left off, Chuck, we
left off with continuing resolutions.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Temporary funding.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, Eventually if a position is contentious enough about some
part of the budget, right, and very rarely is it
something is it something financial necessarily like it has to
do with finances because it's in the budget. But typically
it's something more political than that, like the idea of
(28:04):
medicaid funding abortions.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
In nineteen seventy seven, in nineteen seventy eight, there were
there impasses were reached where they could not come to
an agreement on using medicaid to fund abortions, federal dollars
to fund abortions. Right, that's right, very contentious issue. Yes,
it had to do with money, it had to do
with finances, medicaid funding, but really it was about the
social issue. Is cultural issue abortion? Yeah, that's usually the
(28:31):
kind of the kind of political impass or divide that
it takes to really reach a point where one side says,
you know, I don't even agree to this continuing resolution anymore,
just forget it, we're done.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah. It seems like it's usually something that is so
important to that either president or party or both, that
they feel like it's worth digging in and a lot
of times that has to do Sometimes that has to
do with the thing itself, but sometimes it has to
do with the perception of that thing to your voting base.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Sure that's part of it too, But I mean we're
talking politicians here. I think you could have just said
the last part, you know, that's true.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, So what happens when they failed to pass that
appropriations bill and they're not talking, You're going to get
a funding gap and that doesn't necessarily lead to a
shutdown either.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Can we please get to the shutdown?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Well, since nineteen eighty one, more than half of the
funding gaps lasted just a few days. When I talked
about solving it over the weekend, a lot of times
that will happen over the weekend. And if it's less
than a few days, that means no one had to
sit out work or whatever. It was furloughed.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Right, So technically the government was shut down, but no
one noticed because it happened on days when the federal
government isn't open anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, and until nineteen eighty one, they were actually allowed
to keep operating, but the Reagan administration changed all that.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, what was the name Benjamin Civiletti Chivoletti technically an
Italian to be hit because a C followed by a
vowel makes a chies sound.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Did you know that I do, and I don't remember
this guy.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
I don't either.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I mean we were young and probably too young to
really know about attorney.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
General going and reckless.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Like I knew the president, the Vice president, sure, and
maybe the Speaker of the House or something.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
First attorney general I was cognizant of was Wen Mess
wasn't he or was he state? I don't even know
he was the first cabinet member. I was aware of
Edwin Meese yea. I know Mees because I think they
made fun him in Mad magazine that showed him like
getting hit by a mouse trap or something, because he
was a MEAs.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
That's kind of how I was exposed to politics too, Mad,
I think, so. Sure, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Knew all about Spiro Agnew. Even though I knew who he.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Was, I still don't really know who he was.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
There's this great Simpsons quote where Millhouse and Barter looking
at a Mad magazine They're like, they're making fun of
that Spiro Agnew guy. Again. He must work there or something.
And I remember thinking like, I guess Spiro Agnew works
there because to skewer like the publisher too, So I
just thought Spiro Agnew was one of them.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I think it's a funny name too, and sure comedy circles. Yeah,
that's a good one. Yes. Attorney General Benjamin Cibeletti, he
was Reagan's ag and he said it is not constitutional
to keep spending money without congressional approval, which is what's
happening when you say we'll go ahead and keep working
federal government. So he I mean they kind of made
(31:27):
shutdowns happen.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, Like it was like, okay, we're shut down. Haha,
We're still discontinuing on like normal, right until CHIVALLETTI said, well,
remember that Anti Deficiency Act. That's actually for real, And
I saw somewhere that it like they actually enforced that,
and like federal agencies are are frequently fined for violating
(31:50):
these things like going into contracts or hiring people when
they don't really have the money for it. Yeah, I
saw somewhere the SEC got an eight hundred million dollars
or fine ones for it. Couldn't find it anywhere else,
but it was a spectacular enough number to at least
mention it. Yeah, So Chivoletti really changed the rules for shutdowns,
(32:11):
because before, if the government shut down but the government
still functioned, it was almost more of like a what's
the word I'm looking for, ceremonial kind of thing. It
didn't really mean anything. It was symbolic, symbolic.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Once Ciboletti said no, no, we actually can't stay open during
a shutdown, that made the whole thing way more politically risky,
and so they stopped happening nearly as frequently from that
point on.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
That's right. Things have changed since then tremendously, and there
have been four times and sort of recently where people
really dug in and there were what we would call
major shutdowns. The Winner of ninety five ninety six, there
were two shutdowns because of Bill Clinton being a Democrat
(33:03):
and Newt Gingrich hating his guts. He was a House
Speaker at the time and the Republican controlled Congress, and
Newt was all about the Contract for America, which basically
was small government, lowering.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Taxes, really sticking it to the poor.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, like really higher restrictions on or more strict restrictions
on welfare recipients. So he and Bill Clinton went at
it for a long time.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
They really did, and I mean like each side was
dug in and Gingrich was trying to shove that contract
with America down Clinton's throat. It's not what Clinton's policies were,
and Clinton said no, and neither side would give. And finally,
this is how shutdowns usually get resolved. They start doing
(33:51):
polls of the American public and say who do you
blame for this? And almost invariably the public says, Congress,
this is Congress's fault, that the that the country is
just being weakened right now by this government shut down.
And then Congress.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Reliance, and that's what happened for those two. Both of
the shutdowns were combined twenty six days, and Republicans in
the Congress were to blame, according to American people and
polling numbers at least, so you know, they said.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Sorry, fine, fine, we'll try to get you impeached instead.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Should we talk about twenty thirteen?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, I remember this one really clearly.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
That's right, President Barack Obama. Republicans in Congress again, Ted Cruz.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Like almost single handedly shut the government down, if I
remember it correctly.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, he passed a bill that Republicans were very upset
about the Affordable Care Act, and he did all he
could to defund that, basically defund what was later to
be known as Obamacare.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And he was like leading a kind of a rogue
faction of Tea Party Republicans because John Bayinner was the
speaker at the time, and he was a traditional conservative Republican,
and I believe he was on board too, just at
least with continuing resolutions to keep the negotiations going. And
I remember Ted Cruz just being like, nope, I'm shutting
(35:17):
the government down. And it was a ballsy move.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I'll tell you that, that's right, And that lasted sixteen days.
Eight hundred thousand federal workers were furloughed, which we'll talk
about what that means here in a minute. But again,
public polling and public outcry was against the Republicans at
the time, and they said, all right, we'll pass a
CR and let's change some things about the Affordable Care Act,
(35:42):
but we will pass a CR.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Right. They basically got some minor changes, I think a
big one with the biggest concession they got was that
there would be income verification for people who were applying
for Obamacare.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
That's right. We should talk about the most recent shutdown as.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Well, twenty eighteen nineteen. I remember this one too like
it was yesterday.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
It basically was yesterday. And this was obviously when Donald
Trump said I want a border wall and I want
five billion dollars to get this thing going, and Democrats said, no,
you're not, and they had a meeting on TV which
was really weird. Oh, and Chuck Schumer trick to Donald
(36:28):
Trump into taking responsibility for the shutdown.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Did Schumer do it? I thought he just, like, out
of nowhere asserted it.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I thought. I remember Schumer sort of tricking him in
the room into sort of claiming ownership, almost like a dare.
And Trump was sort of like, yeah, it's my shutdown.
Oh really because it is important. Yeah, And you know
you could see Schumer kind of laughing like, oh, I
don't think he even understands what he just said.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yeah, I'm sure the Republicans were like, I can't believe
you just said that.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
That's right. And there was a partial shutdown on December
twenty second that ran for a historically long thirty five days.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah. The previous one in twenty thirteen was sixteen days.
The previous record was the ninety five ninety six one
combined for twenty six days.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Those are two.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
This is thirty five days.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Over Christmas in New Year's which was a tough time
to do that.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, it was because again the deadline is October first,
so they had created continuing resolutions from October first or
September thirtieth on to December twenty second, and then finally
on December twenty second. I remember this. Trump had been
signaling that he was willing to give and I guess
(37:39):
at least keep negotiating continuing resolutions, and and Coulter, that's right,
expressed on Trump's behalf that she would not be giving
on this position, forgot about it, and that the government
shutdown would go on. And Cultures basically single handedly forced
this government shutdown because she said, if you give on
this like we're done, I will vote against you at
the polls. Make sure nobody else does. And that's when
(38:01):
Trump's will was bolstered tremendously, and that's when the government
shutdown happened. That's right, You want to take a break. Yeah,
how many people are still listening to this?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Do you think roughly seventy percent?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
We'll be right back, okay, Chuck, So.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Well, we should we left a cliffhanger. The government was
shut down when we left.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Oh yeah, it came back.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
It came back after how long?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Again.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Thirty five days later, on January twenty fifth, Trump called
off that shutdown without that funding for the border wall,
again because public perception was swayed not in his favor.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Right, which is rare. Again, every single one of these shutdowns,
everyone said it was Congress's fault. With this one, they
said it was the president's fault. Surely that at least
partially had to do with him claiming on TV that
it was his responsibility for shutting down the government.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
That didn't last long though, because I remember, and it
gets so just childlike and snippy. But with the tweets
from both sides calling it the Trump shut down, Trump
calling it the Schumer Pelosi shutdown, trying to hashtag these
things see what's trending, it's all just so ridiculous, it
is Twitter.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
So the shutdown ended, and like you said, Trump didn't
get that five billion dollars for the wall. I think
they ultimately added like one point six billion for border security,
but nothing specifically for that wall.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Right, and the Democrats started saying, well, like, let's a
really defined wall.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Right, Yeah, I remember that. But what people like to
point out is, not only did Trump not get that
five billion dollars, but America lost at least eleven billion dollars,
yeah right during this shutdown.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, of income.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Right, So there's a real economic cost of government shutdowns. Basically, everyone,
I don't care whether you're a Republican. Stuff you should know, listener,
A Democrat stuff you should know, listener, An anarchist stuff
you should know, a listener, A centrist stuff you should know, listener,
doesn't matter. You should be really mad at your government
whenever there's a shutdown. That's right, because it is holding
(40:42):
people's jobs hostage. Yes, millions of people depend directly on
the federal government for their paycheck, and during a shutdown,
you don't get a paycheck. Some people even have to work.
But the people who don't have to work not only
don't get a paycheck, they will never get that money
for the work that they missed against their own will
(41:05):
during that shutdown.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, Like you can apply for back pay, is that right?
Speaker 1 (41:10):
No?
Speaker 2 (41:11):
You can't. No for who, no one can.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
No. If you worked during the shutdown.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
You can get retroactive pay. Congress has to approve it,
but you had to have been working. It had to
have been in a sense.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
So you can't get back pay for furload time.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
No, okay, it's just gone forever. So people who were
out of work, who are federal workers, I think about
eight hundred thousand of them during the twenty eighteen nineteen shutdown,
the Trump Schumer Pelosi shutdown, they didn't They went without
pay for thirty five days.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, three hundred and eighty thousand of the eight hundred
thousand federal workers actually had to stop working. That's almost
every bit of NASA, hud Housing, Urban Development staff, eighty
percent of National Park Service, fifty thousand workers at the IRS,
and then the other four hundred and twenty thousand that
they deemed essential. They still worked, and I believe they're
(42:08):
the ones that could apply, but they aren't guaranteed that
money though. Right.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
No, Again, Congress has to vote, and usually as part
of a shutdown, just to kind of like get public
perception in Congress's favor, Congress will hold a vote right
and almost nearly almost every time, nearly unanimously for retroactive
pay when this thing's over. The problem is is again
those people who aren't working during that time, whose jobs
(42:33):
are deemed non essential, they'll never get that money, right,
they just don't get it.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
And that I mean if you'd project it to your
future retirement, like, that's money that you're not investing a
you're not buying things with it, right, So you're not
helping the American economy.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Especially during the holidays is last time.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah, you're not investing in the stock market, you're not
taking care of your retirement. So it has these ripple
effects that last, you know, months and years.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
So just to get a little bit back to the
nuts and bolts of all this, it's not like every
time there's a government shut down, the same agency of
the same people are affected in exactly the same way.
Each shutdown is different because do you remember how there's
twelve different appropriations bills that have to go to the president.
Some of those can be passed and signed sure before
(43:21):
the shutdown ever happened. If that happens and your agency
was in one of those appropriations bills, it's like every
other Tuesday or Wednesday for you during the shutdown.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Right, But you can straddle those agencies and they can
be split, and that can get weird.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
It can well like a good example of it getting
weird is when this past one happened, the Coast Guard,
which falls under the Homeland Security slice of the pie.
The Homeland Security hadn't been funded yet, so the Coast
Guard had to keep its operations going without pay, while
the rest of the military the other four branches were
(43:59):
just operating as normally because the Defense Appropriations bill had
already been passed before the shutdown. That's right, So depending
on which bills have already been passed, some groups are working,
some groups aren't. And even in each agency where the
funding hasn't been appropriated for this coming year, there will
be some people who will be working and others who aren't.
(44:22):
And it's up to each agency during a shutdown to say,
this is how we're going to function during this This
is the jobs that have to be carried out whether
the government's open or not. And these are the people
who can be sent home without ever hopeful, without any
hopes have ever been getting paid.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, like you see A you see the thing coming,
so it's not like a big surprise, but b you
have this sort of plan already in place. It's called
you submit it actually to the Office of Management and
Budget and you coordinate with them rather and that's where
you know, you got to lay out your plan, like
(44:57):
they know it's coming and so they gotta plan accordingly.
And like I remember, I have friends that worked with
the federal government at the CDC in places like that,
and you know, they watch the stuff really closely shared.
Some of them were furloughed and you know, went thirty
five days without a paycheck.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Right, And there's so there's that personal level where you
missed rent that that month. I can't remember who was
at Wilbur Ross. One of the cabinet members was like, go,
you know, go take up a craft and or a
hobby and turn that into like money to pay your
rent or just something some unsolicited advice that no one
(45:35):
wanted to hear them. Yeah, So get on Etsy if
you are, if you are in that position, like, yes,
you missed rent, you missed your car payment, you missed
like all sorts of stuff. Even if you're not a
federal employee, you're still probably affected in one way or another.
And the longer that a shutdown goes on, the more
and more people are affected everybody, from people who are
(45:58):
trying to get their passport application pushed through, to people
who are supplemental nutrition program recipients, welfare recipients, food stamps,
children's morning breakfast programs, like all these things start to
run out of funding and they get affected, and more
and more people start to be directly impacted by these
(46:20):
shutdowns the longer they go on.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Sure the FDA food inspections can be curtailed, and in fact,
during long shutdowns there are safety experts that say, you
might want to steer clear of fresh food right now.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, don't eat like that bag of romaine lettuce, especially
if you're pregnant or something.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Or let me see. The National Park Service this was
a big win. During the last shutdown, I think they
some parks were closed all together.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
That's how they did it. In twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah, that was a big one. They lost seventy six
million bucks a day and lost revenue for the National
Park Service. But this most recent when some of them
were shut down, some of them were kept open but
not staffed, so very famously that was I think it
was a Joshua tree where they damaged like irreparable damage
to some of the Joshua trees.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Somebody cut down at least one Joshua tree, which takes
centuries to grow, Yeah, so that they could drive their
off road vehicle in an area where you're not supposed
to drive an off road vehicle, so they could get
to it. They cut down a Joshua tree, and that
became kind of symbolic for that last yeah, last shutdown.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
I mean, there's a range of problems that range from
inconveniences to not getting paid. But you know, imagine coming
from another country and planning this thing for a year.
You put all this money into a trip to come
see the greatest places in the United States. Sure, you know,
I'm from wherever. I'm German, Germany, I was gonna say Germany,
and I want to go see the most beautiful things
(47:47):
in America. I want to go to the Grand Canyon
in Yellowstone. And I've had this trip paid for and
planned and it's not refundable.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
All right, what do you mean Mount Rushmore's closed. I
can see it right there.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
It's closed. Well yeah, sorry, Franz, Sorry, go see. I
don't know what else is around there, not.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Much, No, there's nothing. That's kind of the point. Yeah,
you go see Van Nostron's childhood birthplace right.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
And again these are seemingly like if you ask the
federal government, they they're like, who cares about that minor inconvenience.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Well, there was one thing that I came across that
I found particularly scummy. Chuck during government shutdowns, when other
people who are working are not getting paychecks.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Oh yeah, here we go.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Some congress people still get theirs. All congress people do,
but some have the wherewithal to be like, I'm not
taking any pay during this shutdown, right, Like maybe I'll
get it retroactively, that's fine, but you just hang on
to my paycheck. Other congress people are like, yeah, keep
the money coming, I need it, which is that's super
scummy to me. Other people are out of work or
(48:51):
working and not getting paid, like the TSA famously had
to work and whether they wanted to or not, and
they didn't.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Get paid, or they're calling and sick, they.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Should yeah, they should not be. Congress should not be
getting a paycheck during that time because it's Congress's fault.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I know. I think they said that TSA employee is
about ten percent at one point, we're calling in sick
every day. Yeah, after a little while.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
You remember that. Yeah, it was not a good time
to travel.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
And that's an inconvenience people flying Yep, taken longer.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
When's the next one coming, Chuck, That's what everyone wants
to know.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
October second.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
We'll keep an ear up for it. In the meantime.
Now you know everything there is to know about government shutdowns.
There's more little interesting details, but if you want to
know about them, you can be a saucy boy or
girl and look it up on the internet. And since
I said saucy, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
We have a couple of corrections. We haven't done these
in a while. We haven't made mistakes in years. These
are both yours, not to file on. Hey, guys, I
want to point out that Donald Trump spoke to the
Prime Minister of Sweden Stefan Levvin about the arrest of
Aesop Rocky, not the king.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
Yeah, everybody was really making a lot of noise about
that over here because I got it wrong. Uh.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
And he said, I would not have even sent this
email if Josh hadn't have finished that story with this
is reality. What I just said is actual facts.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
It was close enough.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yeah, it was just a slip at the time.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Facts are the lower case F.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
And that is from Humpus bove Jerg. What try that again,
Humpus bove Jerg.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Let me see, there's a.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Lot of consonants in there. I'm sure some of those
are quite silent.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Wow, I think you nailed it. But you forget the
grip as that his last name. I think Bob Jerg
is the middle name of Thompus Sompus grip.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
And I love that he put swede in parentheses, as
if I had to see that. And then the other
one was a math thing, and I'm kind of curious
about this one nuclear semiotics. Josh said, nine thousand seconds
is four hundred and forty six days. He said, it's
one hundred and four days, And he said, I know
you guys are busy in recording and performing calculations, he said,
but I'm really curious just where that number came from.
(51:10):
He said, because no combination of multiplying dividing nine million
by sixty or twenty four yield for sixty six. And
I'm really just curious. You guys do a great job.
Thanks for everything, Joey Russo.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Thanks Joey. I think that that number was where my
fat thumb and sire you got together and had a baby.
That's where I think that four forty sixteen from gotcha.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
And I'm sure right after you said that, I went,
uh huh, that's right. Yeah, So I'm equally to.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Blaine, thank you Chuck for taking that for the team. Sure,
team Josh. If you want to get in touch with
us to let us know what kind of mistakes I've
been making left and right and Chuck's been abiding. We
love that stuff, love it, can't get enough of it,
so get in touch with us. You can go on
to stuff youshould know dot com and check out our
social links, and as always, you can send us an
(51:57):
email to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com com.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Hi, they're friends. It's me Josh. For this week's select
I've chosen our September twenty nineteen episode on government shutdowns. Sadly,
this is such a perennial topic we should re release
it every couple months. It's a good thing to understand
so that you can be good and ticked off at
your elected officials any time of shutdown happens, because, as
we learn in this episode, they are totally avoidable. So enjoy.
(00:24):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. So I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck Bryan, there's Jerry over there,
and this is the podcast, Like I said, in particular,
it's the Stuff you Should Know podcast. So if that's
not where you're here to listen to, you're in the
wrong place.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And if you don't want to listen to us talk
about government shutdowns, then you're in the wrong place.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well, who doesn't want to know about government shutdowns?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah? I agree. Educate yourselves right as a matter of fact,
because it's gonna happen again soon enough.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
That's exactly right. That is why I wanted to do
this episode. Yeah, because I've been meaning for us to
do this for years now, and every time we do it,
and it's like, every time I go to do it,
say let's do a government shutdown episode, I think, is
what I'm trying to say. Sorry, I just drank a
Red Bull because I was about to fall over and
now I'm talking really fast. Just give me like ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Okay, and you're drinking a Coca Cola.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Well, we don't have zero here anymore. This is all
we have.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We want that extra caffeine kick on top of the
red bull.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I think I have just this twelve ounce can. It's
not even gone, and I think I've burned a hole
in my stomach.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, it's crazy but delicious.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It is delicious, I'll give you that. But Coke zero
is really delicious too, for being a diet cola at
any rate.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Government shutdowns you were saying, Yeah, every time we go
to do this, it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Shuts down, so it looks like we're chasing a trend,
so we have to wait. Yeah, I'm like, finally the
time is right, because.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It wouldn't be cool to do one in the midst
of one.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Is that the definitely not gotcha? No, that's like buying
a T shirt at a concert and then putting that
T shirt on and looking around like, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
At the concert right with that horrible smell. Oh yeah, shirt,
especially concert t shirts that are printed out of you know,
straight chemicals.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Out of Buffalo Bill's basement, made of skin.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Man. He's been on my mind a.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Lot because of the Egean episode.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, because that, and then I just saw on the
movie Crushers page someone posted a funny little thing that
was a Buffalo Bill tender profile. This was really funny.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I got to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And then there was something else from this past weekend.
There was a lot of Buffalo Bill happening. He's everywhere.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, yeah, remember we used to send each other that
that one screenshot. Yeah, that's great. Ye back when we
shared a cubicle wall.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I know, and it was easy enough to do that
back then.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Now we have gold plated airon chairs, no walls anywhere.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I'd take a regular eiron.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I think that's what you're sitting in right now.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I'm quite comfy.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So anyway, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
We should edit all that other stuff out, don't you think.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Or get money from Red Bull Coca Cola and Aaron,
you're right, and Buffalo Bill right, or the Buffalo Bill's
football team.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Dang Man, you just really pulled it together with that
last one. So we've been through some shutdowns in our time.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Chuck, sure, in our day.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, as a matter of fact, you'd think based on
how common they kind of seem. I mean every few years.
There's like the federal government, I should say, for our
fellow listeners outside of the United States, our government is broken, right,
We're talking about government shutdowns, and it's a lot like
what it sounds like. I mean, we'll get to the
(03:56):
nuts and bolts of it, obviously, but it's basically where
the federal government, not state governments, but the federal USA
government parts of it just stop functioning, right, And the
reason they stop functioning is because those agencies that those
parts of the federal government have not been funded. And
(04:17):
since they haven't been funded by law by Congressional Act
from years back, they are not allowed to pay workers
any longer. They're not even allowed to accept volunteer work
from their workers. So with no workers, that means the
agency shuts down, and that's a government shutdown. That's what
we're talking about. Literally parts of the government shut down.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, and again we will get into all the nuts
and bolts, but it shuts down because of funding gaps,
and those funding gaps happen almost always because of entrenched politics.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, it's two sides playing chicken over the budget, right,
and when the government shutdown happens, neither side blinked.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right. And it's also very important to point out that
a big part of government shut downs is trying to
get the other side to maybe not accept blame, because
no one ever does. It seems like sure, but at
least the perception in the general media that this person
or this side is the one to blame.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah, and more often than not, public polling shows that
it's Congress that almost always takes to blame. Oh really,
until this last one, it was always Congress, right, no
matter what, Which is funny that they would try to
pull us off because it's so politically risky.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, because it's.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So damaging on an individual level among like federal employees
or just average Americans, but also on a national level.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, our economy takes a huge, shit.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Huge hit that we just never regain.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
All Right, that's a great setup.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I think so too, So Chuck, to start, I think
we should talk about how money moves around the federal government,
don't you.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, And this is again, if you live outside the
kind and even if you live in the United States,
you may not understand what power of the purse means.
But in the United States and in the US Constitution,
Article one, section nine claws seven.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, not even the Bill of Rights, like the Constitution. Yeah, Like,
this is one of the first things they thought about.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It was Congress who was granted control over the money.
So the President and can't just fund something. The Senate
can't just fund something. Everything has to be agreed on
and they can't spend a dime without Congress's express approval.
Through this process, we're going to get into called appropriations.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Right, and so in the Constitution it just said the
Congress is the one that approves all money. Everything comes
through Congress. Right.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, we should read that though, because it does have
one funny line. You go ahead from the Constitution, no
money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence
of the appropriations made by law. So far, so good, Okay.
Regular statement of account of receipts and expenditures of all
money shall be published from time to time. It's very
non specific.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Whenever you get to it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Why not like you know, in November of every year.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I honestly don't know, because I mean, from time to
time makes it seem unimportant.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It makes it seem what's the word when you don't
have to do something, makes it seem non mandatory?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah? Optional, optional, Sure, that's the word. I know you
so well after all these years. So that's the It's
from Article one of the Constitution, and presidents from seventeen
seventy eight onward said, Okay, I can work with that.
There's a huge loophole here, like no, I can't. I can't,
(07:45):
you know, spend money myself, Like I can't pay anybody myself.
I have to wait for Congress. But that doesn't mean
I can't like get the work done first and then
when it comes time to pay, I can just direct
this contractor vendor, whoever, militiaman to Congress to go get money.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, which is really I mean that is so United
States government to be like, well, I'm technically not writing
the check. I've just engaged someone services and now we
owe them this money.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, Congress, pay this guy's yeah, yeah, he did what
he's saying he did. And so there was this representative
in Virginia who was not happy about this, yeah, this
kind of precedent that had been adopted by the executive branch.
This representative said in eighteen oh six that presidents were
acting like a saucy boy whose wealthy grandfather was going
(08:35):
to cover his needs, and that that was the case.
So eventually Congress said, we got to close this loophole,
and they did in eighteen eighty four.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I think, yeah. The Anti Deficiency Act basically said, no,
you can't just pay the guy to paint your house
and then stand there tapping your toe looking at the
guy with the checkbook.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Right exactly. As a matter of fact, they said, you
can't spend a single dime that Congress hasn't already appropriated
for that. That's right, You just can't do it so
much so that again, you can't even accept volunteer work
unless it is basically to protect life, for public safety,
something really really important.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
But when we say we fund you, Congress funds the
executive branch, all the agencies in the federal government, we
really mean it. And that's what the Anti Deficiency Act really.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Said, yeah, but it would take until nineteen seventy four
when Richard Nixon signed the Congress Budget and Impoundment Control Act.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
It's a barn burner, yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's what really changed everything, and that's what kind of
laid out this process that we still work with today
or don't work with, or sit on our hands and
hold our breath.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right. Ideally, it functions kind of clunky even in its
best form, Yeah, but purposefully so it's to keep Congress
from being profligate with it spending sure, right, Like I mean,
it's to say, this group over here and this group
over here, we're taking the same task and making you
guys do it twice separately and then come together and
(10:10):
hammer out the details. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
It's really discouraging to look at the history of our
country and the you know, the idea should be that like,
all right, we know that in this country we have
a lot of people that feel one way about a
lot of stuff, a lot of people that feel the
other way, and the government's job should be to come
together and negotiate and find nice middle grounds. And it
seems like it's more like the government just finds loopholes
(10:33):
and is sneaky and underhanded to find workarounds from actually
trying to work together and find a middle ground.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Right stinks.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Sick of it.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I'm I'm pretty fed up with government too. I think
most people in America and I would gather the UK too.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
All right, oh man, especially right now. So here's how
it happens. Every year, the two chambers of Congress, they
have to agree on a budget for the discretionary spending,
which is I think only thirty percent of the overall
budget is discretionary. Everything else is mandatory or nondiscretionary, and
(11:09):
that means stuff that you just can't not pay.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
For, right and it's mostly things like Medicaid, Medicare, social
security entitlement programs right to where these are mandatory programs
that are created by an Act of Congress that says
whatever these programs need to run and operate, that's how
much Congress gives them. There's no spending levels, there's no
(11:33):
you know what about this is like you can go
in in monkey with the operation by congressional act. But
as far as spending and budget goes, whatever they need
they get.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
The other stuff, the discretionary stuff, that's what'd you say
about thirty percent of the budget.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
It's thirty percent, but that's still like in twenty eighteen,
that was one point two trillion dollars, And it's really
important stuff. It's not like the mandatory spending is the
only important stuff. We're talking about the f DA, Homeland Security, TSA,
the NIH, National Parks, the IRS.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
The Department of Defense.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, big time stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Basically everything except Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Oh really is that seventy percent essentially? Jeez?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I know.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
All right, So this all starts this appropriations process. It's
laid out for the first Monday in February, and this
is the deadline. It lines up with the deadline for
the president to submit their budget to Congress, which you
always hear this is a president's budget. The president oversees
stuff and approved stuff. But the president's not in there
(12:39):
with the calculator crunching numbers.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
No, No, it's the Office of Management and Budget that
does it for the president, that's right, But it's under
the president's direction. The president says, I really want to
do this. Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore. Right,
But the thing is, it's almost like a little kid
going through the Montgomery Ward wish Book and then writing
their list in crayon that has about the same polling
as the president's budget. Yeah, it really is saying this
(13:03):
is what the president wants to do, and then Congress
either says these are good ideas or they say we're
not listening to that at all, because it's not legally
binding in any way.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
There's probably in fact party line templates. They just throw
down like a mad lib and they tweak it a
little bit, but they say like, oh, here's the Republican
style budget, and here's the Democratic style budget Obama or Trump,
and now do your minor tweaks.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I think that is kind of it's got to be
because it's a huge, massive document.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, they can't like start from scratch every time, can they.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Know it's got to be like the first few pages
are what really count, you know what I mean? It's
got to be.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
But again, this is like they call it in this article,
like the wish list of funding priorities. And that's a
good way to put it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
The Montgomery Ward Wishbook wish list.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I was a Sears kid.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I didn't discriminate. I went through all of them to
make sure all my basis cover.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, we didn't even have Montgomery Wards, so I never really,
I've never laid eyes upon that catalog.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It was it was good. It was a good one.
I put it up against the Series one.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah we had seers. And then I guess Service Merchandise
was another.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I remember that. Didn't they sell everything from like diamond
rings to Cassio keyboards.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Oh, they sold everything. I think I bought my very
first guitar from Service Merchandise, oh, and returned it like
a week later because it was creddy broken, and I
went to a real guitar store.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Sam Ash No.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I actually I remember I went to dirt Cheap Music
on Memorial Drives not there, and again shop Local. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, dirt cheap buzz marketing for a business that is
no longer around.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So they've got this wish list. Then it goes onto
Congress and they have to pass what's called a concurrent
budget resolution.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Right, and Congress can totally ignore the president's budget. They're
taken into consideration if the If Congress is in the
controlled by the same party the president is, the president's
wishes are probably going to be taken into consideration. But
ultimately Congress says, this is what we want to do.
And from what I can tell, when they come up
with this concurrent.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Budget right, yeah, concurrent budget a cbs R Current Budget Resolution.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It's basically just setting the spending for the year. Right.
That's that's all that is, Isn't it like this the
cap on what the federal government can spend entirely?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I think. So it's just that broad agreement of the
total amount of.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Spending, Okay, and then it starts to get divvied up.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, they're not in the weeds at this point. No,
but they're supposed to pass that by mid April, and
that's where they set these spending levels for twenty categories.
And this is where you know, this is where it
starts to break down, or not breakdown, but like in
a bad way. But they start to break it down
because it's such a massive thing. You got to break
(15:50):
it down in the smaller departments.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right. So Congress says, here's the total amount of money
that we're going to spend this year, and it goes
to the Appropriations Committee in the Senate and the Appropriations
Committee in the House, and then each of them says, Okay,
we've got this hole let's divvy it up into twelve slices,
not necessarily equal slices. I think they'd probably be pretty lazy.
(16:15):
But they say, you know, Agriculture and Rural Development, you're
going to get this much this year, Commerce, Justice, and Science,
you're going to get this much, like this slice of
the pie. And they do that over twelve departments that
roughly correspond to the different cabinet posts in the federal government.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
That's right. And it's up to those subcommittees, those twelve
different ones, once they get their little slice of pie,
to then decide how to eat that pie. Yeah, I
think it's that piece of the pie.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
There's an appropriation subcommittee that says this is how you're
going to spend this, that's right, and they have hearings
and stuff like that, where like the heads of these
departments come and say, we really need this. We've got
some really exciting stuff coming up. Give us some more
money where we figured out how to sharks and hunt
dolphins with spear guns, and we really want to get
into that this year.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Or you know, we really need to build this thing,
or the military really needs to upgrade that thing.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Right, stuff like that, and then these appropriation subcommittees, each
one dedicated to a group of agencies or a couple
an agency, just a single one, say okay, this is
how we're going to spend this money. And then once
that happens in the House and the same thing happens
in the Senate, those two groups, the appropriation subcommittees for
each of these twelve slices.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Of pie, come together ideally.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And they say, well, we came up with this. What
did you guys come up with And they say, well,
we came up with this, and we're off by seven
billion dollars. How are we going to figure this out?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
That's great, only seven billion.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Dollars, right, that's nothing these days.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Well, they negotiate with each other to come up with
a joint spending bill. I imagine those meetings are contentious
and tough. Sure, and eventually, though ideally, they negotiate that
spending bill. Then that gets sent to the President and
they can veto that or sign that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Right. So, remember there's twelve there's actually twenty four of
these going on over twelve different slices of pie. And
when they come back together and form twelve different appropriations resolutions,
they can say we're done. This is good let's send
it to the president and the president can sign that.
If things are going along really smoothly and Congress wants
(18:24):
to show off, they'll say, we want to get all
these together in one package. We're going to present all
twelve to the president and the president can either sign
or veto. So they could the president can sign or
veto each one separately, in small groups or as a whole.
As a whole is called omnibus.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah. If you ever heard the term omnibus spending bill
and you're like, what in the world is that, that
just means it's everything grouped together?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Right, And so one reason that you would go through
the headache of trying to put all twelve of those
appropriations bills into one package is that if there's something
in one of those appropriations bills that you want, yeah,
you got a lot more leverage than the other eleven
that you can trade from the budget as a whole
to get that thing out or get this thing in.
If it's one appropriations bill, you have much less leverage.
(19:12):
So that's why they would go to that trouble. But
that's fairly rare, I believe.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, And this is all due by October first, because
that is the beginning of the federal government's fiscal year
is October one. And since we've been doing this in
modern times, I believe nineteen seventy seven was when we
started this process. Congress has passed all twelve by October first,
by that deadline only four times.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Four times, that's right.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So we'll take a break and we'll discuss what happens
all of the other times right after this.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
So okay, Congress comes along. Also, big shout out to
Dave Ruce. This is his first article that we're doing
an episode on.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, Dave is one of the great writers from howsoftworks
dot com that we long admired over the years and
tapped him to do some stuff for.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Us, tapping him.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
We're tapping him and he's tapping back. It's great.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
We've got a pretty great little stable going here. We've
got Dave Rus, Julia Layton, and the Grabster all writing
for stuff you should know right now.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
That's right, And I think if they keep up the
good work, then that's all we need.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, I think so too, because we still put together
our own stuff too, Yes we do. I want to
give us a pat on the back as well.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
All right, that's fine, all right, So I just pulled
the muscle in my arm.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I can't write this week. So, like we said before
the break, this has only happened four times, and since
nineteen seventy seven, that all twelve appropriations bills were passed
by that October one deadline.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So when it comes to October second, it doesn't mean
if we haven't passed those appropriations bills, it's like everything
just stops working right, Because if you pay attention to
the news, you will notice that there's something called a
continuing resolution. So this can happen for a lot of reasons.
One good and sort of non offensive reason could be that, man,
(21:40):
we were really close and we're almost there. We just
need another week or the weekend. We'll work through the
weekend even to get this done.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Right. A good but offensive reason is because someone farted
and everyone cleared out of the chamber and missed the deadline,
so they had to do a continuing rest.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Oh no, I mean if they're close and they just
need a few more days to work it out, then
that can happen. They'll pass the continuing resolution, which means
everything stays the same. You don't get any more money,
or you don't get money taken away. Just keep like
operate as usual.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Right, you can't increase spending. You can spend differently or whatever,
but you can't spend above the levels of the previous
fiscal year. No, you're you're currently in right, that's right, Okay,
I'm with you. I think a continuing resolution, whether it's
one for a day or for a year, and there
have been ones that have been like year long continuing resolution.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Yeah, there's no limit. You can pass them forever long
you think you need.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Right. It does show that negotiations are still ongoing. They
haven't broken down, they just haven't reached the point where
they're in agreement yet.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
The problem comes when they stop issuing continuing resolutions.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
That's right. Day through. In a few pretty cool facts here,
one hundred and eighty six continuing resolutions have been since
nineteen seventy seven, and one hundred and seventeen or those
of those, or those have been since nineteen ninety eight. Yes,
so it's taken them one hundred and seventeen times that
(23:12):
they could not work it out since nineteen ninety eight.
That's a lot.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, that's it is but if you think about it,
the it's about evenly split. Well, no, it's not evenly split.
It's like seventy to I think sixty nine to one
hundred and seventeen over two twenty year periods. Oh yeah,
and it does seem to be getting worse, But that's
kind of lopsided because in twentyd and one there were
twenty one of that one hundred and seventeen. Yeah, twenty
(23:39):
one of them all came in two thousand and one. Yeah,
So I'm not quite sure about this, but I wonder
is the a number and increase in continuing resolutions? Is
that like a barometer for government or how government's working.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Uh? I don't know, because.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I wonder because I mean, ideally, like they would get
all this done by the October first deadline every time.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Well it depends because as this points out, like sometimes
it is over the weekend and it's just a few
days and they're like really close to having it worked out.
So to me, that's not the biggest deal in the world.
That doesn't mean the government isn't functioning well, right, I
mean as well as it ever does, sure, am I right? Yeah,
But like in two thousand and seven, eleven and thirteen,
(24:26):
they were all year long. There were no appropriation spills.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Right, they just said we're just going to repeat last.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Year, or no real appropriation spills, I guess right.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
They just they just said, remember the spending levels from before.
Go with god, that's what you got again this year.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Because that means agree, Yeah, that's when things are bad.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So continuing resolutions too, like it doesn't affect spending levels
or it doesn't increase them. It can't, I wonder. I
don't know if it can decrease them or not. I know,
you it just basically says same spending levels last year,
so maybe it can't decrease them either.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I think can't decrease. I think it's just your current
funding is locked.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Right, But you can attach writers onto continuing resolutions.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, these policy writers, those can be like the make
or break. And if it's clean, which I don't know
how often that happens. I'd be curious to see a stat.
But if it's a clean policy writer, that means it
has nothing else, or a clean.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
CR CR it doesn't have any policy writer, that's right.
So a lot of times though, if there's a policy
writer on a CR, it might be like, Okay, we
can't come to an agreement about medicaid funding abortion that
was a big one in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, but
in this same appropriations bill that we're haggling over, there's
(25:47):
this other thing that's like super critical. It's like local
hospitals aren't going to get any n Q funding and
it's about to run out. So we need to increase
the NQ funding for low local hospitals, and we'll attach
that as a policy writer to this continuing resolution because
this is kind of an emergency and it doesn't really
have anything to do with the contentious part that that's
(26:09):
keeping the policy or the appropriations bill from being passed. Right,
So that's I think usually what happens with that.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
You know what show really nails this stuff is Veep.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
For all it's like, you know, comedy and funny stuff.
It seems like they really nail kind of what it's
like in Washington. Sure, because there's a lot of talk
of this kind of stuff. Yeah, clean bills and writers
and who's on whose side and can we sway this
one person in our darker side?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah, a lot of just dirty, dirty language.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Oh yeah, god man, Julie Louis drive us.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
She is a She's an international treasure totally.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
At one interaction with her briefly when in La and
my friend's building in Los Philos, the Hollymont Building. He
lived there, Scotty, you know, Scotty sure, and we had
a case of beer and a pizza and some snacks
and we were going.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
She showed up, is like, where's the party.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Well, that's sort of what happened. We were going up
in the front of the building and she was shooting
New Adventures of Old Christine right there at the entrance,
and we literally walked by her and they were like
putting on her makeup, like right in front of They
were right about to go, and she said, who are
those guys? I want to go with them? Where are
you guys going? And of course we were like, come
on up.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And then an electrician knocked on our door and asked
to put a light in his apartment shining out the window.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
How much did you charge them?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, we didn't. We were just like, come on in.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
And then Eric Estrada showed up and arrested you.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
All right, so where are we here?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
So I'll tell you where we left off, Chuck, we
left off with continuing resolutions.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Temporary funding.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, Eventually if a position is contentious enough about some
part of the budget, right, and very rarely is it
something is it something financial necessarily like it has to
do with finances because it's in the budget. But typically
it's something more political than that, like the idea of
(28:04):
medicaid funding abortions.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
In nineteen seventy seven, in nineteen seventy eight, there were
there impasses were reached where they could not come to
an agreement on using medicaid to fund abortions, federal dollars
to fund abortions. Right, that's right, very contentious issue. Yes,
it had to do with money, it had to do
with finances, medicaid funding, but really it was about the
social issue. Is cultural issue abortion? Yeah, that's usually the
(28:31):
kind of the kind of political impass or divide that
it takes to really reach a point where one side says,
you know, I don't even agree to this continuing resolution anymore,
just forget it, we're done.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah. It seems like it's usually something that is so
important to that either president or party or both, that
they feel like it's worth digging in and a lot
of times that has to do Sometimes that has to
do with the thing itself, but sometimes it has to
do with the perception of that thing to your voting base.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Sure that's part of it too, But I mean we're
talking politicians here. I think you could have just said
the last part, you know, that's true.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, So what happens when they failed to pass that
appropriations bill and they're not talking, You're going to get
a funding gap and that doesn't necessarily lead to a
shutdown either.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Can we please get to the shutdown?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Well, since nineteen eighty one, more than half of the
funding gaps lasted just a few days. When I talked
about solving it over the weekend, a lot of times
that will happen over the weekend. And if it's less
than a few days, that means no one had to
sit out work or whatever. It was furloughed.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Right, So technically the government was shut down, but no
one noticed because it happened on days when the federal
government isn't open anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, and until nineteen eighty one, they were actually allowed
to keep operating, but the Reagan administration changed all that.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, what was the name Benjamin Civiletti Chivoletti technically an
Italian to be hit because a C followed by a
vowel makes a chies sound.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Did you know that I do, and I don't remember
this guy.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
I don't either.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I mean we were young and probably too young to
really know about attorney.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
General going and reckless.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Like I knew the president, the Vice president, sure, and
maybe the Speaker of the House or something.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
First attorney general I was cognizant of was Wen Mess
wasn't he or was he state? I don't even know
he was the first cabinet member. I was aware of
Edwin Meese yea. I know Mees because I think they
made fun him in Mad magazine that showed him like
getting hit by a mouse trap or something, because he
was a MEAs.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
That's kind of how I was exposed to politics too, Mad,
I think, so. Sure, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Knew all about Spiro Agnew. Even though I knew who he.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Was, I still don't really know who he was.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
There's this great Simpsons quote where Millhouse and Barter looking
at a Mad magazine They're like, they're making fun of
that Spiro Agnew guy. Again. He must work there or something.
And I remember thinking like, I guess Spiro Agnew works
there because to skewer like the publisher too, So I
just thought Spiro Agnew was one of them.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I think it's a funny name too, and sure comedy circles. Yeah,
that's a good one. Yes. Attorney General Benjamin Cibeletti, he
was Reagan's ag and he said it is not constitutional
to keep spending money without congressional approval, which is what's
happening when you say we'll go ahead and keep working
federal government. So he I mean they kind of made
(31:27):
shutdowns happen.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, Like it was like, okay, we're shut down. Haha,
We're still discontinuing on like normal, right until CHIVALLETTI said, well,
remember that Anti Deficiency Act. That's actually for real, And
I saw somewhere that it like they actually enforced that,
and like federal agencies are are frequently fined for violating
(31:50):
these things like going into contracts or hiring people when
they don't really have the money for it. Yeah, I
saw somewhere the SEC got an eight hundred million dollars
or fine ones for it. Couldn't find it anywhere else,
but it was a spectacular enough number to at least
mention it. Yeah, So Chivoletti really changed the rules for shutdowns,
(32:11):
because before, if the government shut down but the government
still functioned, it was almost more of like a what's
the word I'm looking for, ceremonial kind of thing. It
didn't really mean anything. It was symbolic, symbolic.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Once Ciboletti said no, no, we actually can't stay open during
a shutdown, that made the whole thing way more politically risky,
and so they stopped happening nearly as frequently from that
point on.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
That's right. Things have changed since then tremendously, and there
have been four times and sort of recently where people
really dug in and there were what we would call
major shutdowns. The Winner of ninety five ninety six, there
were two shutdowns because of Bill Clinton being a Democrat
(33:03):
and Newt Gingrich hating his guts. He was a House
Speaker at the time and the Republican controlled Congress, and
Newt was all about the Contract for America, which basically
was small government, lowering.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Taxes, really sticking it to the poor.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, like really higher restrictions on or more strict restrictions
on welfare recipients. So he and Bill Clinton went at
it for a long time.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
They really did, and I mean like each side was
dug in and Gingrich was trying to shove that contract
with America down Clinton's throat. It's not what Clinton's policies were,
and Clinton said no, and neither side would give. And finally,
this is how shutdowns usually get resolved. They start doing
(33:51):
polls of the American public and say who do you
blame for this? And almost invariably the public says, Congress,
this is Congress's fault, that the that the country is
just being weakened right now by this government shut down.
And then Congress.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Reliance, and that's what happened for those two. Both of
the shutdowns were combined twenty six days, and Republicans in
the Congress were to blame, according to American people and
polling numbers at least, so you know, they said.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Sorry, fine, fine, we'll try to get you impeached instead.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Should we talk about twenty thirteen?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, I remember this one really clearly.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
That's right, President Barack Obama. Republicans in Congress again, Ted Cruz.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Like almost single handedly shut the government down, if I
remember it correctly.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, he passed a bill that Republicans were very upset
about the Affordable Care Act, and he did all he
could to defund that, basically defund what was later to
be known as Obamacare.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And he was like leading a kind of a rogue
faction of Tea Party Republicans because John Bayinner was the
speaker at the time, and he was a traditional conservative Republican,
and I believe he was on board too, just at
least with continuing resolutions to keep the negotiations going. And
I remember Ted Cruz just being like, nope, I'm shutting
(35:17):
the government down. And it was a ballsy move.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I'll tell you that, that's right, And that lasted sixteen days.
Eight hundred thousand federal workers were furloughed, which we'll talk
about what that means here in a minute. But again,
public polling and public outcry was against the Republicans at
the time, and they said, all right, we'll pass a
CR and let's change some things about the Affordable Care Act,
(35:42):
but we will pass a CR.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Right. They basically got some minor changes, I think a
big one with the biggest concession they got was that
there would be income verification for people who were applying
for Obamacare.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
That's right. We should talk about the most recent shutdown as.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Well, twenty eighteen nineteen. I remember this one too like
it was yesterday.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
It basically was yesterday. And this was obviously when Donald
Trump said I want a border wall and I want
five billion dollars to get this thing going, and Democrats said, no,
you're not, and they had a meeting on TV which
was really weird. Oh, and Chuck Schumer trick to Donald
(36:28):
Trump into taking responsibility for the shutdown.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Did Schumer do it? I thought he just, like, out
of nowhere asserted it.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I thought. I remember Schumer sort of tricking him in
the room into sort of claiming ownership, almost like a dare.
And Trump was sort of like, yeah, it's my shutdown.
Oh really because it is important. Yeah, And you know
you could see Schumer kind of laughing like, oh, I
don't think he even understands what he just said.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yeah, I'm sure the Republicans were like, I can't believe
you just said that.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
That's right. And there was a partial shutdown on December
twenty second that ran for a historically long thirty five days.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah. The previous one in twenty thirteen was sixteen days.
The previous record was the ninety five ninety six one
combined for twenty six days.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Those are two.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
This is thirty five days.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Over Christmas in New Year's which was a tough time
to do that.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, it was because again the deadline is October first,
so they had created continuing resolutions from October first or
September thirtieth on to December twenty second, and then finally
on December twenty second. I remember this. Trump had been
signaling that he was willing to give and I guess
(37:39):
at least keep negotiating continuing resolutions, and and Coulter, that's right,
expressed on Trump's behalf that she would not be giving
on this position, forgot about it, and that the government
shutdown would go on. And Cultures basically single handedly forced
this government shutdown because she said, if you give on
this like we're done, I will vote against you at
the polls. Make sure nobody else does. And that's when
(38:01):
Trump's will was bolstered tremendously, and that's when the government
shutdown happened. That's right, You want to take a break. Yeah,
how many people are still listening to this?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Do you think roughly seventy percent?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
We'll be right back, okay, Chuck, So.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Well, we should we left a cliffhanger. The government was
shut down when we left.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Oh yeah, it came back.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
It came back after how long?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Again.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Thirty five days later, on January twenty fifth, Trump called
off that shutdown without that funding for the border wall,
again because public perception was swayed not in his favor.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Right, which is rare. Again, every single one of these shutdowns,
everyone said it was Congress's fault. With this one, they
said it was the president's fault. Surely that at least
partially had to do with him claiming on TV that
it was his responsibility for shutting down the government.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
That didn't last long though, because I remember, and it
gets so just childlike and snippy. But with the tweets
from both sides calling it the Trump shut down, Trump
calling it the Schumer Pelosi shutdown, trying to hashtag these
things see what's trending, it's all just so ridiculous, it
is Twitter.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
So the shutdown ended, and like you said, Trump didn't
get that five billion dollars for the wall. I think
they ultimately added like one point six billion for border security,
but nothing specifically for that wall.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Right, and the Democrats started saying, well, like, let's a
really defined wall.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Right, Yeah, I remember that. But what people like to
point out is, not only did Trump not get that
five billion dollars, but America lost at least eleven billion dollars,
yeah right during this shutdown.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, of income.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Right, So there's a real economic cost of government shutdowns. Basically, everyone,
I don't care whether you're a Republican. Stuff you should know, listener,
A Democrat stuff you should know, listener, An anarchist stuff
you should know, a listener, A centrist stuff you should know, listener,
doesn't matter. You should be really mad at your government
whenever there's a shutdown. That's right, because it is holding
(40:42):
people's jobs hostage. Yes, millions of people depend directly on
the federal government for their paycheck, and during a shutdown,
you don't get a paycheck. Some people even have to work.
But the people who don't have to work not only
don't get a paycheck, they will never get that money
for the work that they missed against their own will
(41:05):
during that shutdown.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, Like you can apply for back pay, is that right?
Speaker 1 (41:10):
No?
Speaker 2 (41:11):
You can't. No for who, no one can.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
No. If you worked during the shutdown.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
You can get retroactive pay. Congress has to approve it,
but you had to have been working. It had to
have been in a sense.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
So you can't get back pay for furload time.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
No, okay, it's just gone forever. So people who were
out of work, who are federal workers, I think about
eight hundred thousand of them during the twenty eighteen nineteen shutdown,
the Trump Schumer Pelosi shutdown, they didn't They went without
pay for thirty five days.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, three hundred and eighty thousand of the eight hundred
thousand federal workers actually had to stop working. That's almost
every bit of NASA, hud Housing, Urban Development staff, eighty
percent of National Park Service, fifty thousand workers at the IRS,
and then the other four hundred and twenty thousand that
they deemed essential. They still worked, and I believe they're
(42:08):
the ones that could apply, but they aren't guaranteed that
money though. Right.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
No, Again, Congress has to vote, and usually as part
of a shutdown, just to kind of like get public
perception in Congress's favor, Congress will hold a vote right
and almost nearly almost every time, nearly unanimously for retroactive
pay when this thing's over. The problem is is again
those people who aren't working during that time, whose jobs
(42:33):
are deemed non essential, they'll never get that money, right,
they just don't get it.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
And that I mean if you'd project it to your
future retirement, like, that's money that you're not investing a
you're not buying things with it, right, So you're not
helping the American economy.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Especially during the holidays is last time.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah, you're not investing in the stock market, you're not
taking care of your retirement. So it has these ripple
effects that last, you know, months and years.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
So just to get a little bit back to the
nuts and bolts of all this, it's not like every
time there's a government shut down, the same agency of
the same people are affected in exactly the same way.
Each shutdown is different because do you remember how there's
twelve different appropriations bills that have to go to the president.
Some of those can be passed and signed sure before
(43:21):
the shutdown ever happened. If that happens and your agency
was in one of those appropriations bills, it's like every
other Tuesday or Wednesday for you during the shutdown.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Right, But you can straddle those agencies and they can
be split, and that can get weird.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
It can well like a good example of it getting
weird is when this past one happened, the Coast Guard,
which falls under the Homeland Security slice of the pie.
The Homeland Security hadn't been funded yet, so the Coast
Guard had to keep its operations going without pay, while
the rest of the military the other four branches were
(43:59):
just operating as normally because the Defense Appropriations bill had
already been passed before the shutdown. That's right, So depending
on which bills have already been passed, some groups are working,
some groups aren't. And even in each agency where the
funding hasn't been appropriated for this coming year, there will
be some people who will be working and others who aren't.
(44:22):
And it's up to each agency during a shutdown to say,
this is how we're going to function during this This
is the jobs that have to be carried out whether
the government's open or not. And these are the people
who can be sent home without ever hopeful, without any
hopes have ever been getting paid.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, like you see A you see the thing coming,
so it's not like a big surprise, but b you
have this sort of plan already in place. It's called
you submit it actually to the Office of Management and
Budget and you coordinate with them rather and that's where
you know, you got to lay out your plan, like
(44:57):
they know it's coming and so they gotta plan accordingly.
And like I remember, I have friends that worked with
the federal government at the CDC in places like that,
and you know, they watch the stuff really closely shared.
Some of them were furloughed and you know, went thirty
five days without a paycheck.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Right, And there's so there's that personal level where you
missed rent that that month. I can't remember who was
at Wilbur Ross. One of the cabinet members was like, go,
you know, go take up a craft and or a
hobby and turn that into like money to pay your
rent or just something some unsolicited advice that no one
(45:35):
wanted to hear them. Yeah, So get on Etsy if
you are, if you are in that position, like, yes,
you missed rent, you missed your car payment, you missed
like all sorts of stuff. Even if you're not a
federal employee, you're still probably affected in one way or another.
And the longer that a shutdown goes on, the more
and more people are affected everybody, from people who are
(45:58):
trying to get their passport application pushed through, to people
who are supplemental nutrition program recipients, welfare recipients, food stamps,
children's morning breakfast programs, like all these things start to
run out of funding and they get affected, and more
and more people start to be directly impacted by these
(46:20):
shutdowns the longer they go on.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Sure the FDA food inspections can be curtailed, and in fact,
during long shutdowns there are safety experts that say, you
might want to steer clear of fresh food right now.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, don't eat like that bag of romaine lettuce, especially
if you're pregnant or something.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Or let me see. The National Park Service this was
a big win. During the last shutdown, I think they
some parks were closed all together.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
That's how they did it. In twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah, that was a big one. They lost seventy six
million bucks a day and lost revenue for the National
Park Service. But this most recent when some of them
were shut down, some of them were kept open but
not staffed, so very famously that was I think it
was a Joshua tree where they damaged like irreparable damage
to some of the Joshua trees.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Somebody cut down at least one Joshua tree, which takes
centuries to grow, Yeah, so that they could drive their
off road vehicle in an area where you're not supposed
to drive an off road vehicle, so they could get
to it. They cut down a Joshua tree, and that
became kind of symbolic for that last yeah, last shutdown.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
I mean, there's a range of problems that range from
inconveniences to not getting paid. But you know, imagine coming
from another country and planning this thing for a year.
You put all this money into a trip to come
see the greatest places in the United States. Sure, you know,
I'm from wherever. I'm German, Germany, I was gonna say Germany,
and I want to go see the most beautiful things
(47:47):
in America. I want to go to the Grand Canyon
in Yellowstone. And I've had this trip paid for and
planned and it's not refundable.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
All right, what do you mean Mount Rushmore's closed. I
can see it right there.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
It's closed. Well yeah, sorry, Franz, Sorry, go see. I
don't know what else is around there, not.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Much, No, there's nothing. That's kind of the point. Yeah,
you go see Van Nostron's childhood birthplace right.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
And again these are seemingly like if you ask the
federal government, they they're like, who cares about that minor inconvenience.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Well, there was one thing that I came across that
I found particularly scummy. Chuck during government shutdowns, when other
people who are working are not getting paychecks.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Oh yeah, here we go.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Some congress people still get theirs. All congress people do,
but some have the wherewithal to be like, I'm not
taking any pay during this shutdown, right, Like maybe I'll
get it retroactively, that's fine, but you just hang on
to my paycheck. Other congress people are like, yeah, keep
the money coming, I need it, which is that's super
scummy to me. Other people are out of work or
(48:51):
working and not getting paid, like the TSA famously had
to work and whether they wanted to or not, and
they didn't.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Get paid, or they're calling and sick, they.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Should yeah, they should not be. Congress should not be
getting a paycheck during that time because it's Congress's fault.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I know. I think they said that TSA employee is
about ten percent at one point, we're calling in sick
every day. Yeah, after a little while.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
You remember that. Yeah, it was not a good time
to travel.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
And that's an inconvenience people flying Yep, taken longer.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
When's the next one coming, Chuck, That's what everyone wants
to know.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
October second.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
We'll keep an ear up for it. In the meantime.
Now you know everything there is to know about government shutdowns.
There's more little interesting details, but if you want to
know about them, you can be a saucy boy or
girl and look it up on the internet. And since
I said saucy, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
We have a couple of corrections. We haven't done these
in a while. We haven't made mistakes in years. These
are both yours, not to file on. Hey, guys, I
want to point out that Donald Trump spoke to the
Prime Minister of Sweden Stefan Levvin about the arrest of
Aesop Rocky, not the king.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
Yeah, everybody was really making a lot of noise about
that over here because I got it wrong. Uh.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
And he said, I would not have even sent this
email if Josh hadn't have finished that story with this
is reality. What I just said is actual facts.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
It was close enough.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yeah, it was just a slip at the time.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Facts are the lower case F.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
And that is from Humpus bove Jerg. What try that again,
Humpus bove Jerg.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Let me see, there's a.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Lot of consonants in there. I'm sure some of those
are quite silent.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Wow, I think you nailed it. But you forget the
grip as that his last name. I think Bob Jerg
is the middle name of Thompus Sompus grip.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
And I love that he put swede in parentheses, as
if I had to see that. And then the other
one was a math thing, and I'm kind of curious
about this one nuclear semiotics. Josh said, nine thousand seconds
is four hundred and forty six days. He said, it's
one hundred and four days, And he said, I know
you guys are busy in recording and performing calculations, he said,
but I'm really curious just where that number came from.
(51:10):
He said, because no combination of multiplying dividing nine million
by sixty or twenty four yield for sixty six. And
I'm really just curious. You guys do a great job.
Thanks for everything, Joey Russo.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Thanks Joey. I think that that number was where my
fat thumb and sire you got together and had a baby.
That's where I think that four forty sixteen from gotcha.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
And I'm sure right after you said that, I went,
uh huh, that's right. Yeah, So I'm equally to.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Blaine, thank you Chuck for taking that for the team. Sure,
team Josh. If you want to get in touch with
us to let us know what kind of mistakes I've
been making left and right and Chuck's been abiding. We
love that stuff, love it, can't get enough of it,
so get in touch with us. You can go on
to stuff youshould know dot com and check out our
social links, and as always, you can send us an
(51:57):
email to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com com.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
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Chuck Bryant
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