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The Lowdown on the Shutdown

2013-10-01 · Hank · watch on YouTube · US politics & society · news analysis

In a 'special edition of Let's Understand the News', Hank explains the October 2013 US government shutdown: the Republican-led House tied the continuing resolution to delaying Obamacare and the Senate refused; he blames gerrymandered, radicalized districts and calls the shutdown embarrassing but survivable.

What is said

00:00:00 — Greeting; 'special edition of Let's Understand the News'; questions about the shutdown; hair-in-mouth gag; Congress's two chambers and the budget

  • ★ Hank's description says John had a special video planned for this day, but the government shut down, so the brothers switched and Hank stayed up until 3 a.m. to make this video. — 00:00:00 · John Green
  • ★★ Hank explains that America has two chambers of lawmakers that must agree for something to become law, and they approve the budget, the law that makes it legal for the government to spend money. — 00:00:21 · United States Congress

00:00:38 — Continuing resolutions; Obamacare in full swing; the Republican-led House adds a one-year Obamacare delay, the Senate refuses; root-beer skit

  • ★★ Hank says Congress handles the president's budget like any other bill, often so slowly that it must pass a continuing resolution keeping the old budget for a few more weeks; these are usually easy to pass. — 00:00:38 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ Hank says Obamacare, passed in 2010 and upheld by the Supreme Court, went into full swing that day, and the Republicans are not done fighting it. — 00:00:56 · Republican Party
  • ★★★ Hank says the Republican-led House voted on the continuing resolution with an added one-year delay of Obamacare; the Democrat-controlled Senate refused, saying a stopgap is not for sweeping changes to the most significant domestic policy in 50 years. — 00:01:02 · Republican Party

00:01:40 — Obamacare takes effect anyway; plug for the new Healthcare Triage channel; Republicans don't expect to stop Obamacare

  • ★★ Hank says the health-care system is funded separately, so Obamacare went into effect despite the shutdown. — 00:01:40
  • ★★ Hank announces 'we just launched' a new channel, Healthcare Triage, with a video on what Obamacare is about, and tells viewers to watch it. — 00:01:50
  • ★★ Hank says the Republicans don't actually think they will stop Obamacare, which he finds weird. — 00:01:57 · Republican Party

00:02:01 — Root cause: redrawn, radicalized districts make Congress uncooperative

  • ★★★ Hank says the deeper problem is that politicians redrew district lines to be ever more partisan, making elections easier to win but radicalizing districts so representatives must be uncooperative; not easy to fix. (hedged) — 00:02:01 · United States Congress

00:02:29 — What closes and what keeps running; about 800,000 people out of work including a friend; prediction it will be resolved; embarrassing and dangerous; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says museums, national parks, the EPA and NASA basically close, while defense, transportation security, border patrol, food inspectors and emergency readiness staff are exempted and keep working. — 00:02:29 · NASA
  • ★★ Hank says the self-funded Postal Service is fine, and Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are separate and keep operating. — 00:02:44
  • ★★★ Hank says that starting today about 800,000 people are out of work until Congress acts, including a very good friend of his, which makes him mad. — 00:02:51 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ Hank says no one knows how quickly it will be resolved, perhaps three days or three weeks, but it will be, because he trusts Congress wants the country to exist. — 00:02:57 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ Hank expects lost pay, probably the loss of good employees to the private sector, and international ridicule; he calls the shutdown embarrassing, stupid and a dangerous game, but survivable. (hedged) — 00:03:03

Humor (significant)

  • Hank opens by noting that yesterday America had a government. — 00:00:06 > «Today...a little less so.»
  • Listing serious questions about the shutdown, Hank breaks off mid-list. — 00:00:18 > «What is in my mouth? It is a hair, there was a hair in my mouth.»
  • Hank acts out the House inviting the Senate to talk over root beer and the Senate calling the hostage-taking not cool. — 00:01:28 > «And I don't even like root beer»
  • Continuing the skit, the House complains the Senate is too cool for school and wants the shutdown. — 00:01:40 > «who doesn't like root beer?»

Threads in this video

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