Has anybody modeled what this does to the overall system?
My impression is the system doesn't have all that much slack to begin with. And then to reduce all the major airports at the same time? And with the (current) expectation that next week will be worse?
Edit: this feels ripe for a simulator type of game. Assume X% of ATC walk off the job every week because they have to pay their bills and can't work ATC for free any longer. Assume Y% of TSA do likewise. Assume FAA increases acceptable fatality risk by Z% weekly. Give little sliders for X, Y, Z. See what conditions are required to let us make it to December 1.
More edit: It would be cool to compare this to natural shutdowns. For example, how does a 10% reduction overall affect traffic as compared to a given Nor'easter or hurricane or bomb cyclone?
More edit: give FAA the power to e.g. shut down airports and rapidly move & re-certify ATC on other airports, like regional triage. Maybe shut down Hobby and Austin and put everyone at IAH. Move to sectors, so there's a single airport operating in Texas and surrounding states, ATL in the southeast, etc. Game out how far in advance FAA needs to make all those calls in order to minimize fatalities. Game out what is the date after which air travel becomes less safe than driving. This could be like Railroad Tycoon, except from the regulator's perspective.
I would expect the airlines to ad hoc create a reduced master schedule in the interim until capacity is restored. They do this for major holidays, but many months in advance. Here they will be doing 72 hours in advance. Flights won't get "cancelled" they'll be NOOP (Not Operating) which is different. As an Ops Chief, this is heaven (while losing money). Tons of spare planes available. Lots of time to work on backlogged maintenance on the planes. Major headache is parking: it's not easy to have too many idle aircraft for a sizable carrier. Stowing them overnight becomes a choke-point.
That's a good point, the airlines know how to handle reduced system capacity. I think in my hypothetical game I am more interested in how does FAA game out what capacity to tell the airlines.
For example, assume ATC is still not being paid around Thanksgiving week. How many ATC are still coming to work, for free, with no assurance of receiving back pay, on a holiday week, with a second rent/mortgage payment due in a week? Planning around that seems much harder even than planning around a storm!
> Has anybody modeled what this does to the overall system?
At this point I'd be more concerned about safety than secondary effects so I think they are making the right call. At the same time the economic impact will be massive.
I'm interested in such a model in part because I am curious where the safety line is. There's a point after which it becomes reckless to fly in the US.
Yes, but if your model is wrong people will die. Unless you mean to use the model only from a curiosity perspective and not to base actual decisions on.
Yeah, further down in my post I talk about making it a game, it being "cool" to make comparisons etc. I seriously hope the people making decisions have better tools and more insight than my late-night noodling, or we are well past the point where it is no longer safe to fly.
I don't think GP is an official at the FAA or has any influence over those who work at the FAA. It's kinda strange that you'd assume it's not for curiosity and/or personal use.
The longer it goes on, I expect another statistic which is once the backpay check clears, people quit. Because this is bullshit. The backpay will not cover the financing costs of going into debt to cover bills, food, rent, mortgage. The government should foot that bill, but I don't think they will.
Back pay isn’t guaranteed, and Congressional leadership has gone back and forth about whether back pay is owed. I would put money on any back pay being partial at best. (I understand that this is waste, fraud, and abuse that is being cut?)
But yes, this is bullshit. We also should not have active duty military using soup kitchens abroad. But on these matters, my opinion is obviously different from that of most voters. Hopefully, voters will change their minds.
In the last few months, that must be accompanied by the question of who is going to enforce it.
Those charged with enforcement of the relevant laws have waffled on whether or both they plan to issue back pay. Their decisions after the shutdown are the only operative factor, regardless of the letter of the law.
Kind of glad I picked Amtrak to go down and visit family for Thanksgiving
Gonna be rough if the shutdown lasts to the end of November. Shame the usual suspects didn't get the memo about how badly their party was just decimated across the country. Should've been a canary in the coal mine moment
I have to believe that they'll get their shit together before Thanksgiving. If this petty standoff ruins people's holidays, there will (hopefully) be hell to pay at the next election.
After my last horrible domestic flight experience, several trips to Japan, and watching an ungodly amount of Miles in Transit videos, I actually considered just doing 100% Amtrak for an upcoming trip.
Problem is, I live in Utah. The daily California Zephyr pulls into Salt Lake Central at 3AM, way after all the connecting public transit has shut down for the night. So just getting to the train will probably involve a night Uber at what I assume is extraordinary expense. Not to mention it's in the run-down industrialized car park part of downtown, not the nice part with the mall and LDS temple.
Additionally, Utah's class 1 railway is Union Pacific, a dogshit hedge fund running a decrepit railroad that clogs up downtown with shittons of long, slow freight trains[0]. Which means the California Zephyr is one of the most frequently delayed Amtrak services, even with Amtrak levels of padding. So that 3AM train could easily wind up being delayed several hours, and any connections through Chicago are almost certain to get missed. Not to mention it's a three day ride, which is a lot of time to spend on a train without access to a shower[1].
So Amtrak here is the worst combination of inconvenient and slow. I've heard the scenery on the Zephyr is absolutely amazing, though.
I ultimately wound up booking SLC - JFK and a connecting Amtrak from Penn Station to Pittsburgh, which turns out to be about the same time as SLC - JFK - PIT by air. In fact, the air layover is so long JetBlue won't sell you a connecting ticket.
However, I'm now afraid that itinerary is going to get wrecked by this stupid government shutdown, and if that happens I'm pretty sure I'm just out the money for both the plane, train, and hotel.
With infrastructure like this, why would anyone want to vacation in this awful country?
[0] To the point where pedestrians often ignore grade crossing warnings, expecting a slow freight train they can outrun, only to be turned into a fine red mist by a FrontRunner train going 80mph.
Also, if you're reading this and live in Utah, please tell your local representatives to support the Rio Grande Plan: https://riograndeplansaltlakecity.org/
[1] Please correct me if it turns out there are public showers for coach passengers.
> The move comes as air traffic controllers have missed their paychecks due to the government shutdown. Air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration screeners are among the essential government employees who are required to work during the shutdown.
Slavery never went away, it just shifted.
But at least the Republican goverment is doing something positive to curve climate change. If they shut down enough of the economy and people cannot afford gas anymore that will produce less CO2. Win?
For those not familiar with where cities are located in the US, that map is basically a population density map of the US. High population density regions are blue, low population density regions are red. This is true even in "deep red" states and "deep blue" states.
The founders knew this divide would exist, because the same basic divide was there 200+ years ago (different parties and party names, but the same rural/urban political divide). They purposely chose to design the electoral college system in a way that gave rural regions a significant say in political outcomes even when their population densities are much lower than those of cities. They also purposely placed seats of government away from major cities, for much the same reasons.
The country may be more polarized today, but the color pattern on the map is not new.
The electoral college was originally intended to have the states appoint some grandees who would get together and discuss whom the best candidate for president would be (for an election system that actually works like this today, imagine the papal conclaves). This system worked like this approximately once, and failed catastrophically by the fourth election, which prompted the slight adjustment that we see today. Electors weren't regularly selected by popular vote until after that change, largely complete by the 1820s.
Meanwhile, the reason for the electoral allocation reflects one of the most fundamental compromises in the design of the federal system: is the national government be representative of the people, or is it representative of the states? The answer is it's both--that's why there's one house for the people and one house for the states (the Senate). And the number of electors for the president is similarly a compromise, giving one vote for each member of both houses. (Again, recall that senators were not elected by popular vote until the 20th century).
There was no concept of a rural/urban political divide, because urbanization really wasn't a thing in 1787. The overarching concern of the people who wrote the Constitution was balancing the powers of a state like Virginia versus Rhode Island--the small state/large state divide is the major focal point of discussion--although there was also a contentious issue over the role of slavery (of course, in 1787, most states were slave states--only Massachusetts had fully abolished slavery by that point, although the rest of New England had just adopted a gradual abolition program) which yields the ⅗ compromise.
I am skeptical of this claim because in the 1700s the urban population would have been minimal compared to what it is today. A large majority of people were employed on farms.
Wall St was an actual (medieval) wall until the turn of the 18th century. It's at the very south of Manhattan, a ten minute walk from the tip of the city it was built to protect.
NYC's postal names are a mess: Manhattanites can write "Manhattan" or "New York". Brooklynites are supposed to write "Brooklyn." Queens denizens write the historic names of the farm towns that used to be there. "Astoria" is actually part of New York City, even though seeing a letter addressed there might make you think it's a town upstate.
The postal service is older than the current boundaries of New York, and they never updated the mail routing to reflect the unified city.
Before the bridges were built, much of what's now NYC was very rural.
I believe the medieval era ended in the 15th century, but the wall was built in the 17th. So actually the wall would have actually been a colonial era wall, if going by eras - not to mention the construction style was actually more reminiscent of colonial era structures rather than medieval.
> They purposely chose to design the electoral college system in a way that gave rural regions a significant say in political outcomes even when their population densities are much lower than those of cities.
This is a myth. The electoral college as originally conceived simply granted a elector count[1] to the states and let them decide how to allocate them. It had nothing to do with urban/rural divide, which barely existed at all outside of the three (!) states that actually had cities of meaningful size.
The interpretation you're proposing is decidedly modern. It's a retcon intended to justify the fact that "red" states in the modern electorate are clearly wielding outsized influence. But even that has only been true for 2-3 decades.
[1] What asymmetry existed was actually because of the way senate seats are allocated. Its effect on presidential elections was essentially an accident.
The map of where slavery is allowed corresponds pretty well with the areas that are rural, as you don't need slaves to work the fields where there aren't fields, and slaves are a poor labor source for the more differentiated and fluid industries in cities (there isn't enough liquidity for them to adapt to changing economic conditions, as the slaves are property of a single owner and their labor isn't traded on a free market).
This is not true at all. Slavery wasn't allowed in the rural north. And in the south, slavery was part of all sectors of the economy. Slave factories were even a thing. Furthermore, slave labor could be traded on the market just as well as any other labor. There was nothing stopping a slave owner from renting out his slaves a contract labor. If the civil war hadn't happened when it did, southern slavery would have been an industrial horror.
Seats of government necessarily become cities. You don’t create a new city to keep power away from cities. State governments tended to be put in central locations for the convenience of all urban and rural dwellers, and away from existing power centers to avoid concentrating power with the wealthy.
The electoral college demands proportional representation in presidential elections. It says nothing about whether the electors are rural or urban dwellers. In fact, proportional representation weakens the power of less populous states.
The original unicameral continental congress with only a senate gave more power to less populous states, but the founding fathers found it effectively gave any single state veto power, which was counterproductive, and hence the great compromise was passed creating the House.
In short, horse trading. That is, if you have leverage in an adversarial negotiation, you'd be foolish not to use it to get more of what you want.
For example, as a prospective employee, if I knew that I was the only qualified candidate the employer had interviewed, and they really needed someone within a week, I'd know that I can ask for more salary. If I instead take the middle of the salary range, just because it's maximally acceptable to both parties, I'd be missing out
Fascinating. Air traffic controllers shouldn’t be a bargaining chip. Planes must keep flying. If the US federal government is too dysfunctional to provide this service (which it is paid to provide), it should be stripped of the privilege of providing it and some other entity should step in to fill the gap. “Shutdown” should be an abdication of sovereignty plain and simple.
Any "other entity" would, in practice, be either beholden to the same government, or concerned with profit over safety.
Our current crisis is not one we can or should base new structures off of. There is no realistic way to run a modern society that can take into account a government utterly hostile to the very notion of governing. We have to get rid of the bad actors and restore some semblance of sanity before we can even consider how to make things more robust against this sort of treasonous single-party capture in future.
House Republicans have been refusing to show up for work for over a month, while still collecting a paycheck. They expect air traffic controllers, et al. to work for free.
Yes? If I bought a plane ticket to Costa Rica and it turned out half my fellow passengers were actually part of the xyz gang and hijacked it and flew it to... I don't know... El Salvador I would be entirely correct in calling them criminal hijackers and I'd be justifiably pissed off (and scared).
It’s a first past the post election system, meaning you vote for the lesser evil. And this was Trump’s 2nd go around, where he campaigned on pardoning traitors. Anyone that didn’t vote for Harris gets lumped in with the supporters of the current administration, for all intents and purposes.
Eh. You can’t claim the non voters all implicitly support him though since they didn’t know the outcome ahead of time. I’ll agree they didn’t sufficiently oppose him ahead of the 2nd time to bother voting. But that’s far from support.
The current administration won the vote. And in fact the continuing resolutions that would fund the government have majority support in both houses of Congress, by the representatives of American citizens. But it needs 60 votes in Senate not just 50 votes. Right now most Democrat senators (all but 3) are voting against even a clean funding resolution that makes no changes to the pre shutdown status quo.
This is a gentle fiction. The GOP has the 51 votes to change this rule by lunchtime tomorrow and proceed to govern according to the mandate they claim. They may choose not to do that, as is their prerogative.
But they do not "need" 60 votes according to the Constitution, which is free online to read. One can even search for a 60-vote cloture requirement in the document and its amendments, which are in fact the real governing documents that describe how Congress is required to operate.
> This is a gentle fiction. The GOP has the 51 votes to change this rule by lunchtime tomorrow and proceed to govern according to the mandate they claim. They may choose not to do that, as is their prerogative.
You're correct, of course, but they're doing something that's exceedingly rare these days: they're thinking about the ramifications for when the shoe is on the other foot.
Which is kinda dumb, because Democrats have shown time and again that they're willing to throw the rulebook out when it suits them (but they'll cry crocodile tears when it's done to them).
It's all moot anyway; now that the election is over, and they don't need to leverage their constituents well-being for votes, Democrats have indicated a willingness to pass the bill.
> Democrats have shown time and again that they're willing to throw the rulebook out when it suits them
Notably, not for healthcare! (Older person's perspective: the pseudo-requirement for 60 votes is quite possibly why the US didn't get universal healthcare in 2010.)
Anyway, yes it is good if parties who win at the ballot box are able to enact their policies into law. The filibuster prevents this and as such is a cancer on representative government.
The GOP should be able to install armed checkpoints on every city block and eliminate the ACA, returning us to the status quo of 2009[1]. They won the most recent election, that is their prerogative. They should be bound by existing law, but beyond that there should be few checks on them realizing their wish list.
By the same token, when Democrats win, they should be able to offer a Medicare For All and universal preschool[2].
Parties that win should be able to enact their policies. Let the voters decide which policies they prefer. Which brings me back to
> they're thinking about the ramifications for when the shoe is on the other foot.
If they have conviction that their constituents will like their policies, they needn't worry. They should actively want to be able to enact their policies, so that voters can choose them again to get more of the same. What leader of conviction would intentionally neuter their own capabilities?
They're making the right move since everyone just blames orange man bad, as you see in the comments here.
The budget filibuster has been a weird rule for a while that has really just relied on the honor system that the majority party will throw a small bone to the minority to pass the budget. It was only a matter of time until people figured out it doesn't have to be a small bone.
Correct, and anyone that points out that the Democrats could pass this tomorrow are downvoted, and the conversation shifts to some other topic. It's crazy how neither side wants to give in.
Yeah, it's crazy how one side doesn't want to give in because they're unwilling to countenance a loss of healthcare for millions of Americans, while the other side doesn't want to give in because they're unwilling to give up on massive tax breaks for the wealthiest of the wealthy!
They did win the vote and once they started enacting their agenda people decided they didn’t like what they saw which led to the results last night. Trump won because people were misinformed, uninformed, or simply lied to by Trump and his machine.
This whole topic is about politics and I am leery of steering even more in that direction, but based on recent polls, I’m not sure that the passengers currently do support the hijackers.
yes, going straight into the mountain isn't any more pleasant even if 90% of the passengers sit in the cockpit. Which I hope stays a metaphor given the amount of air traffic controllers they just laid off.
Although if that metaphor is too rough I suppose we can also go with the inmates running the asylum
The "gangster" wants the government open, republicans in Congress have all voted ~10 times to reopen. How can you not blame the only people voting to keep it closed?
Out of touch billionaires are running the show, insulated from the problems they are creating. They are people who never have to set foot in a grocery store, worry about paying for a doctor's visit or, importantly here, fly commercial.
Divisiveness and extremism from both parties, when moderates are badly needed. On the issue of the shutdown specifically, there was some belief that Democrats (Schumer in particular) would approve a CR (resolution to fund the federal government) after the second “no kings” protest or perhaps after the election, like maybe it was a political tool they wanted to use for election gains. But it seems they’re content with just letting the shutdown continue indefinitely unless the COVID era “temporary” expansion of ACA subsidies is extended - which is effectively trying to make it permanent.
The establishment dems are moderates. Frustratingly so. What we need are politicians who support regular citizens over the rich and corporations. At least the dems are fighting for something that helps people in need vs the republican’s BBB.
To be clear is the argument that wanting to keep subsidies that maintain healthcare for a few million Americans, at the cost of approximately 10% of the cost of the recent tax breaks passed by Republicans, is extremism? The republicans get everything else they want right? Given the national debt is not the concern (eg because they just cut taxes), what is the issue exactly?
“If there was a shutdown, I think it would leave a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. He's the one that has to get people together.” - Donald Trump 2013
God forbid you actually have to interact with an extermist on the left if you think the geriatric liberals running the show in the democratic party are any kind of extremist.
Usually it is interpreted as a loss of confidence in the government, resulting in the formation of a new government or the calling of an election. Potential loss of power is a pretty good incentive for a government to find a sensible solution.
Because much of what the US government does, including paying most of its employees, is funded by annual appropriations, which are only valid for one particular fiscal year. As soon as that fiscal year ends and a new one starts, if new annual appropriations haven't been passed for the new fiscal year (or something else that provides funds, like a Continuing Resolution), all those things have to stop because there's no money to fund them any more.
There's no Constitutional requirement for all those things to be funded by annual appropriations; the only restriction the Constitution imposes is that no appropriation "to raise and support Armies" shall be for more than two years. It's just how the budgeting process has evolved.
> If there’s no agreement just use what was already law before
That won't work quite as you state it because "what was already law before" expired at the end of the last fiscal year.
A Continuing Resolution is an attempt to extend "what was already law before" for some period into the new fiscal year (in the case of the one passed by the House in September that was until November 21). But it still has to be passed as a law--it doesn't just happen automatically. Congress could put something in place to do that (since there's no Constitutional bar to that--see above), but they never have.
Have you lived in London or Paris? There are WEEKLY strikes on public transportation. I now live in the US and rarely a day goes by that my teammates across the pond don't complain about how bad the trains are to commute to work, half the time its because of a strike.
The is the politicians not being able to form a coalition. Imagine your congress not agreeing to fill some commissions or confirm some positions in government.
It is a 'shutdown' of the legislative branch, not the executive.
Not really comparable because the bureaucratic system kept running. It's just a completely different political system and "there is no government" means a different thing. US-style "government shutdowns" don't really happen in Belgium.
I bet the assholes responsible for shutdown would solve the problem in an instant if they were to start losing money. But they are of course shielded from harm done to the rest of the population.
It should be a constitutional amendment that congress and the president get no pay during a shutdown (with no back pay) and pay a $1000 / day fine for each day that it remains closed. And shutdown for a month should trigger elections.
Not sure if it matters much, to be honest. Even if another airport wasn’t on the list, chances are good it’s connected to at least one that is on the list. Less planes coming in, less planes going out.
How many ATCs are there anyway? Surely the gov can find money from somewhere to pay them during the shutdown. They had no problem raising $250M to fund a ballroom (shows you how much of a bribe those "contributions" really were).
In the USA at least. On my flight from Japan to Taiwan I arrived at Haneda about an hour before my flight, spent 10 minutes total at security including screening time, walked through an automated immigration gate with no wait, had a soba, then boarded.
I timed my time from plane door to train in Taiwan: 24 minutes. To be fair I was hustling and had no checked bag. Automated immigration gate, walk through customs without being stopped, straight to the train. The train comes every 10-15 minutes so I also got lucky boarding right before the doors closed. My time from plane to home was about an hour and a half.
Email every representative available in your state and ask them to please either immediately reopen the government or resign and let in someone who will.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45828203
Has anybody modeled what this does to the overall system?
My impression is the system doesn't have all that much slack to begin with. And then to reduce all the major airports at the same time? And with the (current) expectation that next week will be worse?
Edit: this feels ripe for a simulator type of game. Assume X% of ATC walk off the job every week because they have to pay their bills and can't work ATC for free any longer. Assume Y% of TSA do likewise. Assume FAA increases acceptable fatality risk by Z% weekly. Give little sliders for X, Y, Z. See what conditions are required to let us make it to December 1.
More edit: It would be cool to compare this to natural shutdowns. For example, how does a 10% reduction overall affect traffic as compared to a given Nor'easter or hurricane or bomb cyclone?
More edit: give FAA the power to e.g. shut down airports and rapidly move & re-certify ATC on other airports, like regional triage. Maybe shut down Hobby and Austin and put everyone at IAH. Move to sectors, so there's a single airport operating in Texas and surrounding states, ATL in the southeast, etc. Game out how far in advance FAA needs to make all those calls in order to minimize fatalities. Game out what is the date after which air travel becomes less safe than driving. This could be like Railroad Tycoon, except from the regulator's perspective.
I would expect the airlines to ad hoc create a reduced master schedule in the interim until capacity is restored. They do this for major holidays, but many months in advance. Here they will be doing 72 hours in advance. Flights won't get "cancelled" they'll be NOOP (Not Operating) which is different. As an Ops Chief, this is heaven (while losing money). Tons of spare planes available. Lots of time to work on backlogged maintenance on the planes. Major headache is parking: it's not easy to have too many idle aircraft for a sizable carrier. Stowing them overnight becomes a choke-point.
That's a good point, the airlines know how to handle reduced system capacity. I think in my hypothetical game I am more interested in how does FAA game out what capacity to tell the airlines.
For example, assume ATC is still not being paid around Thanksgiving week. How many ATC are still coming to work, for free, with no assurance of receiving back pay, on a holiday week, with a second rent/mortgage payment due in a week? Planning around that seems much harder even than planning around a storm!
Who’s doing your modelling at the FAA? Aren’t they all furloughed or working while not paid?
> As an Ops Chief, this is heaven (while losing money).
Assuming the airline survives.
> Has anybody modeled what this does to the overall system?
At this point I'd be more concerned about safety than secondary effects so I think they are making the right call. At the same time the economic impact will be massive.
I'm interested in such a model in part because I am curious where the safety line is. There's a point after which it becomes reckless to fly in the US.
I'm not. The only way to satisfy your curiosity is to sacrifice a few hundred people.
That’s the point of the model, so that it doesn’t have to play out in reality.
Yes, but if your model is wrong people will die. Unless you mean to use the model only from a curiosity perspective and not to base actual decisions on.
Yeah, further down in my post I talk about making it a game, it being "cool" to make comparisons etc. I seriously hope the people making decisions have better tools and more insight than my late-night noodling, or we are well past the point where it is no longer safe to fly.
I don't think GP is an official at the FAA or has any influence over those who work at the FAA. It's kinda strange that you'd assume it's not for curiosity and/or personal use.
The longer it goes on, I expect another statistic which is once the backpay check clears, people quit. Because this is bullshit. The backpay will not cover the financing costs of going into debt to cover bills, food, rent, mortgage. The government should foot that bill, but I don't think they will.
Back pay isn’t guaranteed, and Congressional leadership has gone back and forth about whether back pay is owed. I would put money on any back pay being partial at best. (I understand that this is waste, fraud, and abuse that is being cut?)
But yes, this is bullshit. We also should not have active duty military using soup kitchens abroad. But on these matters, my opinion is obviously different from that of most voters. Hopefully, voters will change their minds.
Seems it is the law.
https://www.nteu.org/blog/2025/11/03/ShutdownBackPay
In the last few months, that must be accompanied by the question of who is going to enforce it.
Those charged with enforcement of the relevant laws have waffled on whether or both they plan to issue back pay. Their decisions after the shutdown are the only operative factor, regardless of the letter of the law.
Is this the greatness I've been promised?
Aren't you tired of winning already? I certainly am.
Kind of glad I picked Amtrak to go down and visit family for Thanksgiving
Gonna be rough if the shutdown lasts to the end of November. Shame the usual suspects didn't get the memo about how badly their party was just decimated across the country. Should've been a canary in the coal mine moment
In my mind this is how you’re spending your holidays
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VTD96WhhC9w&list=RDVTD96WhhC9w...
Publix holiday commercials were something else
That certainly has a different feel from my experiences taking a Greyhound bus.
There should be a drug that makes reality feel like this. It would be very popular.
The drug is called "having lots of money"
I have to believe that they'll get their shit together before Thanksgiving. If this petty standoff ruins people's holidays, there will (hopefully) be hell to pay at the next election.
After my last horrible domestic flight experience, several trips to Japan, and watching an ungodly amount of Miles in Transit videos, I actually considered just doing 100% Amtrak for an upcoming trip.
Problem is, I live in Utah. The daily California Zephyr pulls into Salt Lake Central at 3AM, way after all the connecting public transit has shut down for the night. So just getting to the train will probably involve a night Uber at what I assume is extraordinary expense. Not to mention it's in the run-down industrialized car park part of downtown, not the nice part with the mall and LDS temple.
Additionally, Utah's class 1 railway is Union Pacific, a dogshit hedge fund running a decrepit railroad that clogs up downtown with shittons of long, slow freight trains[0]. Which means the California Zephyr is one of the most frequently delayed Amtrak services, even with Amtrak levels of padding. So that 3AM train could easily wind up being delayed several hours, and any connections through Chicago are almost certain to get missed. Not to mention it's a three day ride, which is a lot of time to spend on a train without access to a shower[1].
So Amtrak here is the worst combination of inconvenient and slow. I've heard the scenery on the Zephyr is absolutely amazing, though.
I ultimately wound up booking SLC - JFK and a connecting Amtrak from Penn Station to Pittsburgh, which turns out to be about the same time as SLC - JFK - PIT by air. In fact, the air layover is so long JetBlue won't sell you a connecting ticket.
However, I'm now afraid that itinerary is going to get wrecked by this stupid government shutdown, and if that happens I'm pretty sure I'm just out the money for both the plane, train, and hotel.
With infrastructure like this, why would anyone want to vacation in this awful country?
[0] To the point where pedestrians often ignore grade crossing warnings, expecting a slow freight train they can outrun, only to be turned into a fine red mist by a FrontRunner train going 80mph.
Also, if you're reading this and live in Utah, please tell your local representatives to support the Rio Grande Plan: https://riograndeplansaltlakecity.org/
[1] Please correct me if it turns out there are public showers for coach passengers.
Watching officials describe how the NTSB is working hard to investigate the recent air disaster, knowing that many at NTSB aren't getting paid...
> The move comes as air traffic controllers have missed their paychecks due to the government shutdown. Air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration screeners are among the essential government employees who are required to work during the shutdown.
Slavery never went away, it just shifted.
But at least the Republican goverment is doing something positive to curve climate change. If they shut down enough of the economy and people cannot afford gas anymore that will produce less CO2. Win?
No doubt flights between blue cities.
I'll give you a hint about all cities in the great us of a. https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-map-showing-trumps-004...
For those not familiar with where cities are located in the US, that map is basically a population density map of the US. High population density regions are blue, low population density regions are red. This is true even in "deep red" states and "deep blue" states.
The founders knew this divide would exist, because the same basic divide was there 200+ years ago (different parties and party names, but the same rural/urban political divide). They purposely chose to design the electoral college system in a way that gave rural regions a significant say in political outcomes even when their population densities are much lower than those of cities. They also purposely placed seats of government away from major cities, for much the same reasons.
The country may be more polarized today, but the color pattern on the map is not new.
The electoral college was originally intended to have the states appoint some grandees who would get together and discuss whom the best candidate for president would be (for an election system that actually works like this today, imagine the papal conclaves). This system worked like this approximately once, and failed catastrophically by the fourth election, which prompted the slight adjustment that we see today. Electors weren't regularly selected by popular vote until after that change, largely complete by the 1820s.
Meanwhile, the reason for the electoral allocation reflects one of the most fundamental compromises in the design of the federal system: is the national government be representative of the people, or is it representative of the states? The answer is it's both--that's why there's one house for the people and one house for the states (the Senate). And the number of electors for the president is similarly a compromise, giving one vote for each member of both houses. (Again, recall that senators were not elected by popular vote until the 20th century).
There was no concept of a rural/urban political divide, because urbanization really wasn't a thing in 1787. The overarching concern of the people who wrote the Constitution was balancing the powers of a state like Virginia versus Rhode Island--the small state/large state divide is the major focal point of discussion--although there was also a contentious issue over the role of slavery (of course, in 1787, most states were slave states--only Massachusetts had fully abolished slavery by that point, although the rest of New England had just adopted a gradual abolition program) which yields the ⅗ compromise.
I am skeptical of this claim because in the 1700s the urban population would have been minimal compared to what it is today. A large majority of people were employed on farms.
Just for a fun data point on this…Charleston SC was the fifth largest city in the US in 1800, with 18,000 people.
It’s wild how different the numbers were.
Wall St was an actual (medieval) wall until the turn of the 18th century. It's at the very south of Manhattan, a ten minute walk from the tip of the city it was built to protect.
NYC's postal names are a mess: Manhattanites can write "Manhattan" or "New York". Brooklynites are supposed to write "Brooklyn." Queens denizens write the historic names of the farm towns that used to be there. "Astoria" is actually part of New York City, even though seeing a letter addressed there might make you think it's a town upstate.
The postal service is older than the current boundaries of New York, and they never updated the mail routing to reflect the unified city.
Before the bridges were built, much of what's now NYC was very rural.
I believe the medieval era ended in the 15th century, but the wall was built in the 17th. So actually the wall would have actually been a colonial era wall, if going by eras - not to mention the construction style was actually more reminiscent of colonial era structures rather than medieval.
> They purposely chose to design the electoral college system in a way that gave rural regions a significant say in political outcomes even when their population densities are much lower than those of cities.
This is a myth. The electoral college as originally conceived simply granted a elector count[1] to the states and let them decide how to allocate them. It had nothing to do with urban/rural divide, which barely existed at all outside of the three (!) states that actually had cities of meaningful size.
The interpretation you're proposing is decidedly modern. It's a retcon intended to justify the fact that "red" states in the modern electorate are clearly wielding outsized influence. But even that has only been true for 2-3 decades.
[1] What asymmetry existed was actually because of the way senate seats are allocated. Its effect on presidential elections was essentially an accident.
Um… not quite.
There is clear, documented evidence that slavery and the three fifths compromise are directly related to the creation of the electoral college: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/elec...
The map of where slavery is allowed corresponds pretty well with the areas that are rural, as you don't need slaves to work the fields where there aren't fields, and slaves are a poor labor source for the more differentiated and fluid industries in cities (there isn't enough liquidity for them to adapt to changing economic conditions, as the slaves are property of a single owner and their labor isn't traded on a free market).
This is not true at all. Slavery wasn't allowed in the rural north. And in the south, slavery was part of all sectors of the economy. Slave factories were even a thing. Furthermore, slave labor could be traded on the market just as well as any other labor. There was nothing stopping a slave owner from renting out his slaves a contract labor. If the civil war hadn't happened when it did, southern slavery would have been an industrial horror.
This is also not true, not to mention a terrible assumption about how slavery in the south actually operated. Please read more.
Lot of nonsense.
Seats of government necessarily become cities. You don’t create a new city to keep power away from cities. State governments tended to be put in central locations for the convenience of all urban and rural dwellers, and away from existing power centers to avoid concentrating power with the wealthy.
The electoral college demands proportional representation in presidential elections. It says nothing about whether the electors are rural or urban dwellers. In fact, proportional representation weakens the power of less populous states.
The original unicameral continental congress with only a senate gave more power to less populous states, but the founding fathers found it effectively gave any single state veto power, which was counterproductive, and hence the great compromise was passed creating the House.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0e636a652d44484b9457f95...
relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/1138/
What is stopping them from funding the things they have consensus on piece by piece while they continue debating the rest?
In short, horse trading. That is, if you have leverage in an adversarial negotiation, you'd be foolish not to use it to get more of what you want.
For example, as a prospective employee, if I knew that I was the only qualified candidate the employer had interviewed, and they really needed someone within a week, I'd know that I can ask for more salary. If I instead take the middle of the salary range, just because it's maximally acceptable to both parties, I'd be missing out
Fascinating. Air traffic controllers shouldn’t be a bargaining chip. Planes must keep flying. If the US federal government is too dysfunctional to provide this service (which it is paid to provide), it should be stripped of the privilege of providing it and some other entity should step in to fill the gap. “Shutdown” should be an abdication of sovereignty plain and simple.
Abdication of sovereignty is precisely what one party wants. I don’t understand how many people fail to recognize this.
Which other entity in existence is there?
Any "other entity" would, in practice, be either beholden to the same government, or concerned with profit over safety.
Our current crisis is not one we can or should base new structures off of. There is no realistic way to run a modern society that can take into account a government utterly hostile to the very notion of governing. We have to get rid of the bad actors and restore some semblance of sanity before we can even consider how to make things more robust against this sort of treasonous single-party capture in future.
Wild times. I guess I'm just at a loss for words—what's going on in this country.
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Congress is still supposed to do its job.
House Republicans have been refusing to show up for work for over a month, while still collecting a paycheck. They expect air traffic controllers, et al. to work for free.
By impeaching and removing him, yes
Half of Congress clearly believes its job is to do whatever the gangster says.
Is it called a hijacking if the majority of passengers support the hijackers?
Yes? If I bought a plane ticket to Costa Rica and it turned out half my fellow passengers were actually part of the xyz gang and hijacked it and flew it to... I don't know... El Salvador I would be entirely correct in calling them criminal hijackers and I'd be justifiably pissed off (and scared).
49.5% of 65% of eligible voters voted for him.. hardly a majority any way you slice it, either of voters or of the broad population.
49.5% of 100% of the votes
Still not a majority.
It’s a first past the post election system, meaning you vote for the lesser evil. And this was Trump’s 2nd go around, where he campaigned on pardoning traitors. Anyone that didn’t vote for Harris gets lumped in with the supporters of the current administration, for all intents and purposes.
Eh. You can’t claim the non voters all implicitly support him though since they didn’t know the outcome ahead of time. I’ll agree they didn’t sufficiently oppose him ahead of the 2nd time to bother voting. But that’s far from support.
The majority of American citizens do not support the policies of the current administration.
This has been true for a while. The last president to finish out a term solidly over 50% approval was Clinton.
The current administration won the vote. And in fact the continuing resolutions that would fund the government have majority support in both houses of Congress, by the representatives of American citizens. But it needs 60 votes in Senate not just 50 votes. Right now most Democrat senators (all but 3) are voting against even a clean funding resolution that makes no changes to the pre shutdown status quo.
> needs 60 votes
This is a gentle fiction. The GOP has the 51 votes to change this rule by lunchtime tomorrow and proceed to govern according to the mandate they claim. They may choose not to do that, as is their prerogative.
But they do not "need" 60 votes according to the Constitution, which is free online to read. One can even search for a 60-vote cloture requirement in the document and its amendments, which are in fact the real governing documents that describe how Congress is required to operate.
> This is a gentle fiction. The GOP has the 51 votes to change this rule by lunchtime tomorrow and proceed to govern according to the mandate they claim. They may choose not to do that, as is their prerogative.
You're correct, of course, but they're doing something that's exceedingly rare these days: they're thinking about the ramifications for when the shoe is on the other foot.
Which is kinda dumb, because Democrats have shown time and again that they're willing to throw the rulebook out when it suits them (but they'll cry crocodile tears when it's done to them).
It's all moot anyway; now that the election is over, and they don't need to leverage their constituents well-being for votes, Democrats have indicated a willingness to pass the bill.
> Democrats have shown time and again that they're willing to throw the rulebook out when it suits them
Notably, not for healthcare! (Older person's perspective: the pseudo-requirement for 60 votes is quite possibly why the US didn't get universal healthcare in 2010.)
Anyway, yes it is good if parties who win at the ballot box are able to enact their policies into law. The filibuster prevents this and as such is a cancer on representative government.
The GOP should be able to install armed checkpoints on every city block and eliminate the ACA, returning us to the status quo of 2009[1]. They won the most recent election, that is their prerogative. They should be bound by existing law, but beyond that there should be few checks on them realizing their wish list.
By the same token, when Democrats win, they should be able to offer a Medicare For All and universal preschool[2].
Parties that win should be able to enact their policies. Let the voters decide which policies they prefer. Which brings me back to
> they're thinking about the ramifications for when the shoe is on the other foot.
If they have conviction that their constituents will like their policies, they needn't worry. They should actively want to be able to enact their policies, so that voters can choose them again to get more of the same. What leader of conviction would intentionally neuter their own capabilities?
1 - taken loosely from current enactment of policy and https://prod-static.gop.com/media/RNC2024-Platform.pdf?_gl=1...
2 - taken loosely from https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2024-Democr...
They're making the right move since everyone just blames orange man bad, as you see in the comments here.
The budget filibuster has been a weird rule for a while that has really just relied on the honor system that the majority party will throw a small bone to the minority to pass the budget. It was only a matter of time until people figured out it doesn't have to be a small bone.
Correct, and anyone that points out that the Democrats could pass this tomorrow are downvoted, and the conversation shifts to some other topic. It's crazy how neither side wants to give in.
Yeah, it's crazy how one side doesn't want to give in because they're unwilling to countenance a loss of healthcare for millions of Americans, while the other side doesn't want to give in because they're unwilling to give up on massive tax breaks for the wealthiest of the wealthy!
They did win the vote and once they started enacting their agenda people decided they didn’t like what they saw which led to the results last night. Trump won because people were misinformed, uninformed, or simply lied to by Trump and his machine.
> which led to the results last night.
Democrats risk drawing the wrong lessons from one good day
You must be thinking of the ones that didn't vote? Yeah, they don't count.
(voting is how you get counted)
Even the ones that did vote. They don't seem to support the tariffs, Venezuela/Columbia expeditions, ICE behavior, etc.
This whole topic is about politics and I am leery of steering even more in that direction, but based on recent polls, I’m not sure that the passengers currently do support the hijackers.
The majority of passengers didn't even care enough to vote.
They don't though, and current polling across the board looks horrible for them. Results yesterday were also quite telling.
yes, going straight into the mountain isn't any more pleasant even if 90% of the passengers sit in the cockpit. Which I hope stays a metaphor given the amount of air traffic controllers they just laid off.
Although if that metaphor is too rough I suppose we can also go with the inmates running the asylum
The "gangster" wants the government open, republicans in Congress have all voted ~10 times to reopen. How can you not blame the only people voting to keep it closed?
Republicans want it open with the conditions, conditions that are unacceptable for the health of society
Did any of these 10 votes meaningfully address concerns of the objecting representatives?
The republicans have a clear majority in all three houses. They can reopen if they want to.
they're taking away people's healthcare
Out of touch billionaires are running the show, insulated from the problems they are creating. They are people who never have to set foot in a grocery store, worry about paying for a doctor's visit or, importantly here, fly commercial.
Divisiveness and extremism from both parties, when moderates are badly needed. On the issue of the shutdown specifically, there was some belief that Democrats (Schumer in particular) would approve a CR (resolution to fund the federal government) after the second “no kings” protest or perhaps after the election, like maybe it was a political tool they wanted to use for election gains. But it seems they’re content with just letting the shutdown continue indefinitely unless the COVID era “temporary” expansion of ACA subsidies is extended - which is effectively trying to make it permanent.
The establishment dems are moderates. Frustratingly so. What we need are politicians who support regular citizens over the rich and corporations. At least the dems are fighting for something that helps people in need vs the republican’s BBB.
To be clear is the argument that wanting to keep subsidies that maintain healthcare for a few million Americans, at the cost of approximately 10% of the cost of the recent tax breaks passed by Republicans, is extremism? The republicans get everything else they want right? Given the national debt is not the concern (eg because they just cut taxes), what is the issue exactly?
“If there was a shutdown, I think it would leave a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. He's the one that has to get people together.” - Donald Trump 2013
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/G1m9mWg3xYk
The republicans have control of every major branch of government and it's still somehow the Dems fault.
God forbid you actually have to interact with an extermist on the left if you think the geriatric liberals running the show in the democratic party are any kind of extremist.
Both sides! Well no, there is ine centrist party and one extremist party.
There are moderates in one party and project 2025 extremists in another
Why is a shutdown even possible? If there’s no agreement just use what was already law before. It makes no sense.
What other country has such a stupid procedure?
Other countries call it "Loss of Supply".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_supply
Usually it is interpreted as a loss of confidence in the government, resulting in the formation of a new government or the calling of an election. Potential loss of power is a pretty good incentive for a government to find a sensible solution.
> Why is a shutdown even possible?
Because much of what the US government does, including paying most of its employees, is funded by annual appropriations, which are only valid for one particular fiscal year. As soon as that fiscal year ends and a new one starts, if new annual appropriations haven't been passed for the new fiscal year (or something else that provides funds, like a Continuing Resolution), all those things have to stop because there's no money to fund them any more.
There's no Constitutional requirement for all those things to be funded by annual appropriations; the only restriction the Constitution imposes is that no appropriation "to raise and support Armies" shall be for more than two years. It's just how the budgeting process has evolved.
> If there’s no agreement just use what was already law before
That won't work quite as you state it because "what was already law before" expired at the end of the last fiscal year.
A Continuing Resolution is an attempt to extend "what was already law before" for some period into the new fiscal year (in the case of the one passed by the House in September that was until November 21). But it still has to be passed as a law--it doesn't just happen automatically. Congress could put something in place to do that (since there's no Constitutional bar to that--see above), but they never have.
Have you lived in London or Paris? There are WEEKLY strikes on public transportation. I now live in the US and rarely a day goes by that my teammates across the pond don't complain about how bad the trains are to commute to work, half the time its because of a strike.
Fun fact: this didn't happen before 1980 when the courts started enforcing the anti deficiency act.
I'd say certain countries in Europe give us a run for our money: https://caw.ceu.edu/other-activities/academic-blog/politics/...
This is completely different.
The is the politicians not being able to form a coalition. Imagine your congress not agreeing to fill some commissions or confirm some positions in government.
It is a 'shutdown' of the legislative branch, not the executive.
Not really comparable because the bureaucratic system kept running. It's just a completely different political system and "there is no government" means a different thing. US-style "government shutdowns" don't really happen in Belgium.
better, US can move essential services to a separate budget and keep it away from this shutdown nonsense.
I bet the assholes responsible for shutdown would solve the problem in an instant if they were to start losing money. But they are of course shielded from harm done to the rest of the population.
It should be a constitutional amendment that congress and the president get no pay during a shutdown (with no back pay) and pay a $1000 / day fine for each day that it remains closed. And shutdown for a month should trigger elections.
> And shutdown for a month should trigger elections.
I'd be more strict and say shutdown on day 1 trigger reelection for all senate and congress seats and the president & VP. Get everyone out.
It's not like they don't know this is coming months in advance, so there is no excuse at all to fail at their job which is negotiating a compromise.
President is getting richer and richer evrry day from crypto and deals with familly.
It would become a war of attrition where the richest win because they can afford to.
Most of the establishment are rich enough to not care, but more junior representatives would suffer.
Seems like a win for reducing air pollution
Not if a significant fraction of people drive.
Did you do the math on that?
Anyone figure out yet which 40 airports these are?!? All articles I have seen say 40 airports but don't mention which ones
Anchorage International
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International
Boston Logan International
Baltimore/Washington International
Charlotte Douglas International
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International
Dallas Love
Ronald Reagan Washington National
Denver International
Dallas/Fort Worth International
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County
Newark Liberty International
Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International
Honolulu International
Houston Hobby
Washington Dulles International
George Bush Houston Intercontinental
Indianapolis International
New York John F Kennedy International
Las Vegas McCarran International
Los Angeles International
New York LaGuardia
Orlando International
Chicago Midway
Memphis International
Miami International
Minneapolis/St Paul International
Oakland International
Ontario International
Chicago O'Hare International
Portland International
Philadelphia International
Phoenix Sky Harbor International
San Diego International
Louisville International
Seattle/Tacoma International
San Francisco International
Salt Lake City International
Teterboro
Tampa International
Not sure if it matters much, to be honest. Even if another airport wasn’t on the list, chances are good it’s connected to at least one that is on the list. Less planes coming in, less planes going out.
If its not on this list, it's probably on next weeks list anyway.
All the major airports. Just looks up the top airports in the US they will all be impacted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_i...
Official announcement tomorrow.
Earlier: US may cut air traffic 10% by Friday without shutdown deal, sources say
(reuters.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45828203
Maybe they should just cancel all the private jets that fly around and that would probably amount to 10% which would only affect the 1%.
How many ATCs are there anyway? Surely the gov can find money from somewhere to pay them during the shutdown. They had no problem raising $250M to fund a ballroom (shows you how much of a bribe those "contributions" really were).
Its more important to brutalize your citizens with ICE.
Even if flights aren't cut, TSA and related staff are. I've heard rumors of 4 hour security lines at IAH.
The MAX WAS 4 hours, its well under an hour now.
Maybe better to get rid of some of the security theater that we also like to scrutinize with good reason.
Unreal. Traveling is just not worth it right now.
In the USA at least. On my flight from Japan to Taiwan I arrived at Haneda about an hour before my flight, spent 10 minutes total at security including screening time, walked through an automated immigration gate with no wait, had a soba, then boarded.
I timed my time from plane door to train in Taiwan: 24 minutes. To be fair I was hustling and had no checked bag. Automated immigration gate, walk through customs without being stopped, straight to the train. The train comes every 10-15 minutes so I also got lucky boarding right before the doors closed. My time from plane to home was about an hour and a half.
sounds good for the economy
Email every representative available in your state and ask them to please either immediately reopen the government or resign and let in someone who will.