What is CR in this context?

Kinda weird that's not already the default behavior.

Leadership believes they would be unable to cobble together enough votes to pass a budget if there wasn't the threat of a shutdown to hang over the Representatives.

Voters in the US tend to elect Representatives who are unwilling to compromise. Being obstructionist is rewarded with way better re-election chances than getting anything done. Voters want to see their candidate Stand Up To The Enemy, although they will accept passage of a Perfect Bill (as annointed by their media of choice). Passing a bill that is later deemed by their media of choice to have any small non-perfection gets them primaried and booted. So any candidate that doesn't have extensive cover for passing a budget, that by its nature has to be a compromise, is replaced by a more obstructionist person.

"Best we can do is fund spoiler candidates after our boy lost the NYC democratic primary"

The bill is called "The true shutdown fairness act", and it is a poorly named response to the republican "shutdown fairness act".

The main differences between the bills (which aren't really covered in the news, but you can read the bills) is that the shutdown fairness act was limited to excepted employees (those who have to work without pay), as well as some military personnel and some contractors. But it gave trump discretion about who could get paid, and did nothing for furloughed employees, nor guarantee all service members or contractors get paid (again, because it allowed trump to pick and choose)

The true shutdown fairness act aimed to ensure all federal employees and service members get paid, and prevent mass firings during the shutdown. I don't know/understand why this bill was rejected (I'll edit if I can find anything)

This post and this post go into a bit more detail.

Edit: I can't find a news article with direct quotes, but this is part of the ai overview (so take it with a grain of salt)

Underlying reasons: Democrats opposed the Republican bill because they felt it would grant the President too much power to decide which employees would be paid and which would not. Republicans, in turn, blocked the Democratic bill, with Johnson expressing concern that it would limit the President's ability to manage the government and potentially reduce the workforce.

Thanks Reagan!

The very last thing you want on a job is old timers who have been through terrible situations and know shortcuts and tricks to get through it.

Institutional memory? Bah! We have MBA's!

I mean I wouldn’t want to have a federal position now…. Who knows when you could next be expected to work with no pay for a month or more because a bunch of fascist babies aren’t quite getting their way.

Sounds like no one invited you anywhere for Thanksgiving.

Funny how some people are always ready to have other folks suffer for a good cause.

Good points, thank you for adding to the picture.

Is that Socrates brother

If I see a black air traffic controller I am gonna be like “Boy, I hope he is qualified.”

Which is exactly what Jesus would have been like.

As well as it did in the Revolutionary War, I'm sure!

Didn't some billionaire step up to pay the military? Because that sounds like such a great fucking idea. What could go wrong.

Trump believes he can do what Reagan did. The only issue is the current ATC system is 16000 controllers compared to 12000 in the 80’s and the military has around 3500 controllers which is almost identical to the number in the 80’s. There is no way the military can cover the same traffic as civilian controllers can, and unlike Reagan the current world is much more reliant on air travel.

Were they already very short with no hope of hiring enough for years when fired a bunch of them?

I don’t believe they "resigned" in the 80s. They went on strike.