Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

What a Crock!

—

by

James A. Bacon
in ,

bea

In doing some on-line research today, I tried to access the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) website. Here is the message I received:

“Due to the lapse in government funding, www.bea.gov will be unavailable until further notice. … We sincerely regret this inconvenience.”

A press release states that, “like all other U.S. government entities,” the BEA is required to suspend operations until Congress appropriates funding for the fiscal  year. The suspension includes both the release of economic indicators and access to the BEA website.

Interesting. How come the U.S. Census Bureau website isn’t down? How come the Bureau of Labor Statistics website isn’t down? How come the White House blog isn’t down? Does the government shutdown extend not only government offices, including salaries and utilities, but to the servers hosting the BEA website and publicly available data?

What baloney.

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9 responses to “What a Crock!”

  1. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    In fairness, I would shut down my servers if I didn’t have anybody to monitor them. The possibility of hackers running roughshod in the environment while “nobody was home” is a problem.

    Not sure why Census, etc are still up. Maybe they have enough “essential” employees to keep an eye on the site.

  2. Neil Haner Avatar
    Neil Haner

    In defense of whoever runs the website and/or made the decision to post that message on the webpage:

    It is a fairly nonpartisan message. I can easily make the assumption from that message that the person who wrote it is publicly calling out both parties equally for not approving a budget, and is using their limited platform to put a little extra pressure on all parties involved to figure something out.

    Just playing devil’s advocate here.

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    National Park service closed this morning also. Not the Post Office.

    every govt agency has a skeleton crew that is called “essential” – and “essential” can vary but it usually means keeping the building secure and plumbing, electricity, etc operating normally – and whatever is necessary to support the personnel that do that.

    Some of them may not get paid anyhow but work on the premise that eventually they’ll get back pay – and extra pay if they are working non-normal hours.

    what’s “baloney” is shutting down the govt as extortion then whining about it.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Post Office is a self-funding agency and not subject to the shutdown.

  4. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    correct. sounds like many DOD installations are furloughing.. … today.

    oh.. and the Post Office has been forced to do what DOD has not – and that is fund pensions for 75 year horizons.

    How come the PO has to do that and not DOD?

  5. jft Avatar
    jft

    What’s this? Jim Bacon complaining that the government isn’t providing a service for his free use?

    You know, I thought I saw some flying pigs on the way into work this morning…

  6. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    were those government pigs or libtard pigs or Tea Pot Pigs?

    😉

  7. jft Avatar
    jft

    I couldn’t really tell, but I’m pretty sure they were all marked for good ol’ fashioned bipartisan pork-barrel spending bills… at least, I saw a whole bunch of Democrats and Republicans trying to shoot them.

    Well, except for McAuliffe, who was standing to the side with a shiny new shotgun loudly proclaiming how he just loves hunting and being a gun owner.

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    😉

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