Living in the Society the GOP wants?

It could be argued that the GOP (at least the more conservative faction) favors many of the things happening today.  They just don't like being subject to the howls of outrage it has produced.
They don't like giving away things to the little people, or "burdensome" regulations.  Because of the bad PR, they have proposed funding a few things, like National Parks, Armed Forces, Veterans' benefits, etc., but for a lot of people who rely on the safety net, things just get harder.

• The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program is suspended, it provides supplemental food vouchers and support to nearly 8.9 million people, mostly women and children under the age of five. Without it, they're going without food and formula.

•  Head Start funds serving low income programs have been suspended, although wealthy private donors are trying to keep some centers open.  Some of those same funds provide payments to seniors and low income families for paying heating and energy bills, and without that the victims will be a lot colder.  Meals for the elderly are also at risk.

• Federal courts, which have been using fees and other funds to operate since the shutdown began, will likely have enough money to operate until Oct. 17, and possibly Oct. 18.After that, the courts will run out of money and shut down all nonessential work.

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission shut down most operations on Thursday. However, resident inspectors will remain on the job and any immediate safety or security matters will be handled.

• The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they can handle recalls and high-risk foodborne outbreaks, but discovering them will be more difficult because many of the people who investigate outbreaks have been furloughed. Routine food safety inspections were suspended, so most food manufacturers won't have to worry about periodic visits from government inspectors. 

•  The National Transportation Safety Board is not investigating most transportation accidents, making an exception only if officials believe lives or property are in danger. The agency suspended 1,500 investigations that were underway before the shutdown. Nor has the board collected information on or sent investigators to the scene of 20 accidents involving U.S.-manufactured aircraft that have occurred around the globe since Sept. 30.

•  At the Environmental Protection Agency, the shutdown means the agency can no longer certify whether vehicles meet emissions standards, delaying some new models from reaching car lots. New pesticides and industrial chemicals are also in limbo because the EPA has halted reviews of their health and environmental effects. And the nation's environmental police are no longer checking to see if polluters are complying with agreements to reduce their pollution.

• New patients are generally not being accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health, but current patients continue to receive care. NIH has made exceptions to allow 12 patients with immediately life-threatening illnesses — mostly cancer — into research studies at its renowned hospital. Normally, about 200 new patients every week enroll in studies at the NIH's research-only hospital, many of them after standard treatments have failed.

• Some borrowers are finding it harder to close on their mortgages. The delays could worsen if the shutdown continues and possibly undercut the nation's housing recovery. 

• Officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs have quietly told Congress that they likely won't have enough money to pay disability claims or make pension payments for veterans if a government shutdown lasts for more than two or three weeks. That could affect some 3.6 million veterans who receive these benefits.

• Every fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitors the spread of flu and figures out how best to direct vaccine programs around the country. During the shutdown, however, the agency will be "unable to support the annual seasonal influenza program," according to a memo from the Department of Health and Human Services.

• During the shutdown, the Social Security administration won't have enough staff to schedule new hearings for those applying for disability benefits. And the Veterans Appeal Board will be closed, which means veterans appealing a decision on disability benefits will have to wait until the shutdown ends.

Obama thinks Social Security needs a cut

Bernie Sanders has been roused to defend Social Security against cuts by President Obama.  Sanders, who chairs the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, recalled that candidate Obama promised Americans in 2008 that he would not cut Social Security, but that was then I guess.

Obama will include it in his budget, to be unveiled April 10. Federal budgets are not like family budgets—they’re nonbinding spending road maps that serve chiefly as statements of political priorities and punching bags for political opponents. Even if Obama’s budget passes both the House and Senate (it won’t) and he signs it into law, it’s unlikely to have much impact on how Congress decides to spend federal dollars.
That’s not to say that it’s a wholly useless bit of theater. Washington has been at war over how best to reduce deficits and rein in the country’s galloping debt. The budget says, in effect, what Obama might be willing to do to achieve those goals, which in turn puts pressure on congressional Democrats to fall in line.
Obama’s support for that longstanding Republican wish-list item is not really a surprise. It’s been a part of each of his “grand bargain” offers to the GOP for cutting the deficit. White House press secretary Jay Carney had said in his April 1 daily briefing that the proposal “remains on the table.”

Saving Social Security

The two politicians I admire most, Bernie Sanders and Peter DeFazio have introduced legislation to extend the Social Security tax to rich people, who only pay the tax on the first $113,700 of income, they skate free of the tax on anything they make above that, thus the richest 1% pay a miniscule contribution to Social Security.  They don't contribute anything at all to Social Security or Medicare on Capital Gains income, yet another loophole for the rich.  Somehow, investment income is deemed to be privileged and not taxed the same as wages.  There has been discussion on remedying this, but the rich have hordes of lobbyists to prevent it.

"Only earned income (wages, self-employment income) is subject to social security and medicare tax. Passive and investment income (interest, dividends, capital gains, rents and royalties) are only subject to federal and state income tax."