Darrell Castle talks about the budget debate in Congress and what is causing the impasse. Transcription / Notes HOW CAN THE REPUBLIC SURVIVE ITS ELECTED LEADERS Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report.  Today is Friday, December 8, 2017, and on today’s report, I will be discussing the National budget, due today but now postponed until December 22.  Congress is supposed to pass a budget for the New Year by the end of each fiscal year, but they have been unable to do so for quite some time operating instead on a series of continuing resolutions. This is very important to each of our lives for reasons we will see.  The people we elect to oversee the nation’s finances control even tiny aspects of our lives, for example, they tell me who I can hire and who I can fire, how much water I can have in my toilets, what lights I can use in my home, and how I can heat and cool my home.  The point is that there so many glaring problems on the backs of the American people but our elected leaders will not deal with them except perhaps to make them worse. According to Federal Reserve statistics, the United States Government owes 20.4 trillion dollars and climbing every minute.  The 75-year shortfall of promises, over actual ability to deliver, is 210 trillion dollars currently.  That means that over the next 75 years, not including what’s being added every year, the Federal Government has issued promises for 210 trillion dollars more than it is capable of delivering.  Our children, grandchildren, and future generations will owe more and more of their wages to tax, if they are fortunate enough to have wages. In addition to the Federal Government, virtually every state and local government is head over heels in debt they cannot pay.  Private individuals have followed the government’s example into debt slavery as well.  One in 10 individuals has debt in the hands of a collection agency.  I mention these things just to set the stage for what the government is doing to resolve its budget problems. Congress is divided just like the rest of the nation is divided, but the difference is, that on most items in Congress, decisions are made by the majority.  The Republicans hold majorities in both houses so they don’t really need Democrat cooperation, but it seems that the minority party always has leverage if it has the courage to use it.  A couple of months ago Congress was unable to pass a budget so they passed a “continuing resolution” instead.  That resolution provided funds to run the government until today.  Now the Republicans have prepared a new continuing resolution to last until December 22, so the whole thing will have to be debated again in two weeks. If Congress doesn’t pass a 2018 budget by midnight December 22, the Federal Government will have to theoretically shut down.  That is non-essential services will have to shut down.  Most services and agencies will be fine and some will be partially affected.  The longer the impasse lasts the more the services will be affected.  National Parks, payments to Federal Contractors, certain regulatory enforcement, visa processing and other such things would be shut down. The military, federal prisons, the war on drugs, etc. will all be just fine.  The last shutdown in October 2013 lasted just 17 days.  Most of us survived the apocalypse just fine and laid off federal employees received their back pay for not working.  Social Security checks went out on time and TSA remained on the job but still, one wonders why these intelligent people can’t agree on how much more than they actually have should be borrowed and spent. Everybody on both sides of the isle seems to want more guns, bullets, airplanes, ships, and the people to operate them.  Once they have them our representatives busy themselves creating world situations that require the federal government to use them.  They are willing to sacrifice a lot of things in order to purchase the items of war.