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June 29, 2005

Before The Apocalypse

Steve Sviggum advised Minnesotans to get mentally ready for a government shutdown:

"Citizens, like legislators, have to prepare themselves mentally,'' said Sviggum, R-Kenyon. "It's not the right thing to do, it's not a good thing to do but you don't want to be just shocked by what is going to happen tomorrow night either.''
Shocked by:
  1. ...having to pee before you get out on the highway?
  2. ...having to find a Wal-Mart parking lot to camp in, because you can't pitch your camper in a state park?
  3. ...having to find alternate sources for non-essential state services...
  4. ...assuming you can find any, since the courts determined that not only were state-run nursing homes and the State Patrol and most entitlement payments essential, but so were courts, state colleges, and the legislature.So what exactly is the impact going to be on you, the average Minnesotan?

    Anyone?

    Posted by Mitch at June 29, 2005 06:16 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Shocked that these hamsters can't do their job every other year?

Good thing we're camping in Wisconsin in July...

Posted by: Steve Gigl at June 29, 2005 03:55 PM

I won't be able to go complain to the actual culprits about the rotten photo on my drivers license. Compared to five years ago, I look old, and fat. That can't be right.... (:-)))

Posted by: RBMN at June 29, 2005 04:06 PM

I think I will go boating without an approved PFD. That'll show em

Posted by: rick at June 29, 2005 04:10 PM

well, i'm glad all you republicans are doing so well. it'll put me out of a job until whomever decides to get their acts together.

Posted by: melanie at June 29, 2005 04:22 PM

Rick, they'll get you for that. That was one of the things deemed essential. We can't have them loosing sources of income, now can we?

I loved the PP front page story a few days ago about the state employees who were worried that folks wouldn't get upset by the lack of services or would see how little the nonessential services impacted their lives.

Posted by: nerdbert at June 29, 2005 05:08 PM

People like this Melanie character really tick me off.

Let me tell you a true story. My grandfather, a registered Republican, worked for the city of Pittsburgh the last time there was a Republican administration in that city. When the Great Depression started, pretty much the whole country turned from Republican to Democrat. The city of Pittsburgh elected a Democrat as mayor and everyone employed by the Republican administration was out of a job. He was never able to get steady work again. My grandfather died of food poisoning in a Salvation Army kitchen for unemployed men a few years later.

As a result, my father was unable to attend college because he had to go to work to support himself and his mother. He had won a scholarship, but had absolutely no money to pay his way through school. It was his only chance to go to college.

Using Melanie's reasoning, I ought to be condemning Democrats for being the party of privilege who killed my grandfather and denied my father the opportunity to seek higher education.

There was no "until" for my grandfather like there is for Melanie.

Posted by: Dave in Pgh. at June 29, 2005 05:10 PM

Mitch, some spending bills were passed, so some of them are non-essential but funded by legislation already. Me, for one.

Posted by: kb at June 29, 2005 06:29 PM

As an Ex-Minnesotan, (Princeton) I can remember back in the day, before I left the State, that there was a similar occurance back in '81 or '82.

IIRC, the State Government was shut down for several weeks once back then.

My comment at the time was "Who noticed?" I know I didn't.

Let them go away, and realize that the money you save is not reflected in any way by the services that you don't miss.

Maybe giving the State Government the summer off without pay should become a tradition whenever the budget is tight!

Posted by: Jeff Tracy at June 29, 2005 08:43 PM

If you need to pee after you're out on the highway, you can always stop at a fast-food restaurant...outside of the big cities, they really don't pay any attention, since there aren't homeless people trying to shoot up in there.

Posted by: Robert E. Bihlmayer at June 29, 2005 10:54 PM

I love the Strib's point that, since we'll have to pay out vacation days and personal days to state employees on furlough, we're losing money.

Every time we pay a day out of somone's vacation allotment, that's one day's pay we don't have to lay out later. So, it's not really an expenditure - it's a drawdown of a banked account. We already paid it when we granted the vacation day.

Posted by: bobby b at June 29, 2005 11:33 PM

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