Thread: Troops Forage for Food While Golfers Play on in Shutdown Andrews AFB

Breitbart
10/03/2013

“The reason you’re seeing such irregular things is because everyone knows it’s going to have to end,” Kamarck said. “They also know that when it ends the government is going to pay its bills, one way or the other.”

Troops Forage for Food While Golfers Play on in Shutdown

Grocery stores on Army bases in the U.S. are closed. The golf course at Andrews Air Force base is open.

All 128 employees of the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. are working, while 3,000 safety inspectors employed by the Federal Aviation Administration are off the job.

The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing new pharmaceuticals. The National Institutes of Health is turning away new patients for clinical trials.

The seeming randomness of the U.S. government’s first shutdown in 17 years can be explained in part by anomalies in the spending Congress does and doesn’t control. Activities funded by fees from drug, financial-services and other companies are insulated from year-to-year budget dysfunction. The ones that get a budget from Congress get hit.

“What’s really happening in America is that the appropriations process has completely failed,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution in Washington who worked in the White House during the last shutdown in 1995-96.

This isn’t government according to U.S. civics textbooks. Government is supposed to collect taxes, the president is supposed to propose each year how to spend the money, and Congress has the final say with the constitutional power of the purse.

Passports, Patents

Instead, Congress has had to resort to a so-called continuing resolution -- a catchall bill to keep the government operating on life support while negotiations continue -- in each of the past 16 years.

There have been 93 continuing resolutions passed since 1998, covering operations for as little as 21 days in 1999 to the full years of 2007 and 2011, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Since the standoff between President Bill Clinton and Congress that last shut down most of the government, funding of more functions has shifted to means outside the appropriations process, Kamarck said.

Passport applications are paid for by fees. The FDA is funded through assessments on companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE) The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which has said it can operate for at least four weeks, has been funded by user fees since 1993. The Federal Highway Administration is funded by taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, not income taxes, so its 2,914 employees are on the job.

Wildlife Refuges

Other agencies can keep operating with multiyear funding or reserves. Visitor centers and public facilities at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges are closed, while construction and land acquisition continues because those activities have long-term funding. The Saint Lawrence Seaway agency is using a revolving account containing $12.8 million to stay fully operational.

Closures can seem arbitrary as agencies define what’s necessary for life, health, safety and safeguarding of property.

While many functions at Army bases continue, commissaries in the U.S. are closed, forcing troops and their families to shop at local stores that cost about 30 percent more, Lieutenant General Raymond Mason, the service’s deputy chief of staff for logistics, said yesterday at a House hearing.

“For the soldiers and their families, that’s very difficult,” Mason said.
The Andrews Air Force Base golf course is funded through user fees and that’s why it remains open, said Air Force Captain Lindy Singleton, chief of public affairs for the 11th Wing at Andrews.

JetBlue’s Plane

In Rock Creek Park, the urban forest in Washington where Theodore Roosevelt used to ride his horse, cars made their morning commute along a well-traveled parkway while hikers were prohibited to walk.

Numbers of furloughed employees vary dramatically from agency to agency. The Agriculture Department is furloughing 84 percent of its staff, while the Veterans Affairs Department is keeping 96 percent of its workers on the job.

In the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 38 percent of the 4,113 employees are still on the job, including those that provide water, fight fires or are building roads or bridges. Suspended activities include payments of financial assistance to needy individuals, and to vendors providing foster care.

The shutdown of FAA aircraft-certification activities prevented JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU) from taking delivery yesterday of its first Airbus A321 jetliner, the airline said. The plane is stranded at a factory in Germany.

The U.S. Census Bureau has kept nine employees in Indiana on the job for three days to print furlough notices and send them out.

“The reason you’re seeing such irregular things is because everyone knows it’s going to have to end,” Kamarck said. “They also know that when it ends the government is going to pay its bills, one way or the other.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...-shutdown.html

PRIORITIES: Thanks to the #shutdown, military families must do without grocery stores.The presidential golf course, however, remains open for business.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/kjptj26

The Only National Park Untouched By The Shutdown? Obama’s Golf Course

by The Liberty Paper • October 5, 2013 • 5 Comments

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R) Enjoy A Round Of Golf At Andrew’s Air Force Golf Course

The government “shutdown” has been quite a game of political theater. Most every essential government function remains intact, and furloughed government workers are still receiving their pay for now.
The Obama administration is threatening to cancel the Air Force, Navy football game. However, both athletic clubs receive private funding.
“There would be no cost to the government, there are zero appropriated funds in terms of conducting this contest at the Naval Academy,” Navy athletic director, Chet Gladchuk said. “It has no affect on the budget of the government one way or the other. What it does is that it eliminates the opportunity for the academy to generate critical revenue to support 33 varsity sports.”
The Air Force football team remains a member of the Mountain West Conference. According to Craig Thompson, Mountain West commissioner, institutions have $2.5-3 million in conference distributions, which each team may use at their disposal however they wish.
So again, the government wouldn’t have to pay one red cent to fund the game.
The story continues at Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota. The National Park Service recently shut down the state’s most visited tourist attraction. However, they also placed cones blocking off the road for miles so that tourists couldn’t even snap pictures from the outlook points leading up to the actual monument.
According to Jim Hagen, secretary of South Dakota Department of Tourism, “They won’t even let you pull off on the side of the road. I just don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish.”
However, in case that’s not enough theater, the feds went after privately owned Mt. Vernon, home of George Washington. The property is owned and financed by the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association. The federal government also closed access to the property’s parking lots shortly after they barricaded WWII veterans from viewing their memorial close to the National Mall.
Anyone who can’t see that the shutdown is little more than theater simply isn’t paying attention. If the above examples aren’t enough for you then look no further than to President Obama’s favorite golf course, which remains open. President Obama frequents Andrew’s Air Force Base Golf Course, which boasts three 18-hole courses. It is located on prime Washington D.C. property.
According to the PGA the US government spends an average of $384,000 – $1,000,000 per year on every golf course it owns. The federal government operates some 234 golf courses around the world. Combined, that’s a total of about $140 million per year on golf courses.
The course remains open. Officials cite that the course receives payments from private individuals on snacks and course fees, but it is clear that the courses still runs on tax payer dollars.
How is that any different than the privately owned Mt. Vernon, or the WWII memorial, which has zero staff or operational costs. How is it different than the privately funded Air Force, Navy athletics departments? Why block people from taking pictures of a rock more than a mile away from the actual entrance?
The difference is that the other cases wouldn’t affect Obama and his pals directly. They only affect “we the people”.


http://www.thelibertypaper.org/2013/...s-golf-course/

Military keeps Camp David open, cuts NFL, baseball coverage to troops overseas

Posted on 5 October, 2013 by clyde



via The Washington Examiner

President Obama has visited the Navy-run presidential retreat Camp David in central Maryland only 32 times, but it is being kept open during the government shutdown for his entertainment and security at the same time the Pentagon is cutting sports coverage to hundreds of thousands of troops around the world.

A phone call to the retreat found it open, confirming a TMZ report.

Camp David is one of the most highly secure areas in the nation and provides the president with a safe haven. The president has been known to shoot skeet at Camp David, which he most recently used for his 52nd birthday, according to CBS White House Correspondent Mark Knoller.

Obama has spent just 78 days at the retreat, choosing instead to spend his weekends in Washington and hitting military golf courses, which are also being kept open during the government shutdown.

In the meantime, overseas troops who typically look forward to watching NFL games and the baseball playoffs provided by the American Forces Network, will get little if any service due to the shutdown. A notice on the AFN page reads:

“GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN. Due to the government shutdown, the Defense Department can only provide limited overseas television, radio, print and web services.”

The virtual elimination of sports coverage was noticed by the New England Sports Network, co-owned by the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins. “AFN provides a form of escape for many troops stationed around the world.

Let’s hope the popular station gets back on the air soon,” they reported.

http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/10/0...oops-overseas/