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  • Why government shutdowns only seem to happen in the US

    From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to nz.politics,uk.politics.misc,alt.politics.trump on Wed Oct 1 21:43:22 2025
    From Newsgroup: nz.politics

    (Note my slightly less awkward rephrasing of the title). From <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1kw2wpnzwko>:

    Even in Belgium, which did not have an elected government in power
    for 589 days between 2010 and 2011, the trains kept running.

    More recently, Ireland managed to keep everything running from
    2016-2020 under a minority government with a confidence-and-supply
    system, which is when parties not in power agree to support
    spending bills and confidence votes.

    But this type of cooperation has become increasingly rare in the
    US, where warring political parties seem all-too willing to use
    the day-to-day functioning of the government as a bargaining chip
    to extract demands from the other side.

    I think this is a difference between putting the good of your country
    first, and putting the good of your party first. If you see the latter
    going on, then your democracy is in trouble.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Tony@lizandtony@orcon.net.nz to alt.politics.trump,nz.politics,uk.politics.misc on Fri Oct 3 19:07:08 2025
    From Newsgroup: nz.politics

    Lawrence D Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    (Note my slightly less awkward rephrasing of the title). From ><https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1kw2wpnzwko>:

    Even in Belgium, which did not have an elected government in power
    for 589 days between 2010 and 2011, the trains kept running.

    More recently, Ireland managed to keep everything running from
    2016-2020 under a minority government with a confidence-and-supply
    system, which is when parties not in power agree to support
    spending bills and confidence votes.

    But this type of cooperation has become increasingly rare in the
    US, where warring political parties seem all-too willing to use
    the day-to-day functioning of the government as a bargaining chip
    to extract demands from the other side.

    I think this is a difference between putting the good of your country
    first, and putting the good of your party first. If you see the latter
    going on, then your democracy is in trouble.
    No other country has the same sort of government processes, that is why. The US
    government system is deeply flawed and this is one of the examples of that. Most other copuntries have fewer flaws.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2