US Government Uptime Monitor

[nekusar]

A far as I'm concerned, they're just intentionally failing to do their job. And they *all* in congress should be fired for job abandonment. And yes, rerun elections, with those idiots not allowed to run.

After all, when I look at my W2 (yeah, I'm a working stiff), they sure as hell are taking out taxes still. That aint "shut down". It's a scam.

Something about "taxation without representation". I think we went to war over that before.

[maest]

A failure like this would immediately trigger reelections in the UK. It's a strong incentive to not shut down the government.

There is no serious incentive to avoid this in the US. In fact, you're incentivised to be complicit in the shutdown and then blame the other party.

[BlackjackCF]

The US really needs formalized processes for snap elections and easier ability to recall elected officials. The fact that this is happening and we all just have to sit on our hands and wait for the next election is wild.

[nitwit005]

The Republican voters have responded very harshly to people seen as compromising with Democrats. Increasingly that's also true of Democratic voters, as they see their leadership as giving in to Republicans.

Unless that changes, you just get back to the same situation.

[mulmen]

> And they all in congress should be fired for job abandonment. And yes, rerun elections, with those idiots not allowed to run.

I find these takes very tiresome. What kind of insight can you draw from this all or nothing thinking? It’s reductive and uninteresting.

Not all elected representatives are refusing to work. Collective punishment creates an opportunity for bad actors to force an election and remove their colleagues from office.

> After all, when I look at my W2 (yeah, I'm a working stiff), they sure as hell are taking out taxes still. That aint "shut down". It's a scam.

Well yeah, of course they are. You still owe taxes. When the government reopens the taxes you pay will still be allocated.

> Something about "taxation without representation". I think we went to war over that before.

This is not what was meant by taxation without representation. We do have elected representation, even in a government shutdown. Congress refusing to work is not a consequence of the government shutdown, it is a political choice made by elected representatives.

[lithobraking]

>After all, when I look at my W2 (yeah, I'm a working stiff), they sure as hell are taking out taxes still. That aint "shut down". It's a scam.

This is because a significant amount of the government is still running. [1] Around 50% of gov employees are currently working without pay (but with expected backpay). If _everyone_ stopped working major systems would immediately be disrupted: The military would stop all operations. Planes would be grounded. Weather predictions would cease to exist. Food & pharmaceuticals wouldn't be screened. Participants in medical studies would stop getting treatments. etc.

Contractors are also capable covering expenses with overhead. But soon, many will run out. For example, the contractors who perform nuclear weapons research [2]. At which time, they will have to shut down and employees will be furloughed without guarantee of backpay. (The current expectation is unpaid leave) As someone who works in a related civilian field this would severely impact our mission and the folks who work here. Especially the newer ones like postdocs who may not have much savings.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/who-is-still-workin...

[2]: https://sourcenm.com/2025/10/17/doe-secretary-nnsa-to-furlou...

[JumpCrisscross]

> they're just intentionally failing to do their job

How is this a hot take? The debt ceiling is statute. Electeds are doing what their voters want them to do. Until shutdowns result in a bipartisan anti-incumbency wave, they won’t go away. (The electoral consequences of shutting down the government are mixed at best.)

[alecsm]

This uptime monitor must be streaming illegal football (soccer) because it's blocked in Spain.

    IP              Provider                       Status
    188.114.97.5 AS13335 (CLOUDFLARENET, US)     Blocked
    188.114.96.5 AS13335 (CLOUDFLARENET, US)     Blocked

And the funny thing is free football is working as always. I know because a friend is watching a game right now while he comments on HN.

[prmoustache]

cloudflare. Most of the internet behind cloudflare is blocked whenever there are football being played in La Liga (the Spanish League).

[drnick1]

This is outrageous. Does Spain have a "Great Firewall" like China?

[port3000]

Love it. However if this were realistic, it would say Partial outage so as to not trigger the SLAs

[candiddevmike]

Sorry for the inconvenience, we're currently pausing some services to avoid releasing the Epstein files.

[neckardt]

Love it! One nit: the % number jiggles around. This can be fixed either by left aligning the number, or by using a monospaced font.

[sherry-sherry]

Or using ‘tabular figures’ for the numbers. It keeps just the number widths the same. I believe it’s ‘font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums;’ in CSS.

I often see it on sports broadcasts, or anything with a counter where the number changes and makes the rest of the line ‘jiggle’.

[issung]

The percentages should be counting upwards for the departments that are currently operational, instead they are currently static :)

[xboxnolifes]

Its a 15 year window. They don't go up until the disruptions fall outside of the window.

[mckn1ght]

Apparently this same idea was done 12 years ago, it's still there but I guess is no longer being updated, it still shows the gov't being up:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6500700

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6476641

[nadermx]

I applaud this. "Your tax dollars at rest"

[delichon]

They can come home, all is forgiven.

[pizlonator]

Yeah but like this isn't funny anymore guys

[Marsymars]

It's kinda funny if you don't live in the US.

[slater]

i'd say go tell the felon(s) in the white house, but they're currently busy having a gold-encrusted ball room built

[superfunny]

Needs to go back further - there were shutdowns 30 years ago

[whoisthemachine]

This did make me curious, when did the federal government start "running" on a budget and "shutting down" when it doesn't have enough money? All 250 years, or is this a more recent phenomenon?

[daft_pink]

Wish there was a simple way to get updates on large swings in the government shut down poly market.

I’d really like to know when things are shifting without having to watch the stupid news every day.

[hdaz0017]

- if governement is down does that mean citzans do not have to pay any taxes

- All US workers need to go on strike until you get a government that works for the whole population ;)

[jakozaur]

(Tech) Debt seems to be a frequent cause of (Tech) outages.

[stefan_]

This says "USDA operational"

[atmavatar]

It's too bad the page only goes back 15 years.

It would be a bit cooler if it went all the way back to the first government shutdown under Carter.

[lionelholt]

Energy > National Nuclear Security Administration (civilian)

Should we be concerned about that being shut down?

[0xblinq]

Where's the up time monitor for this site? It seems to be down.

[bradtheappguy]

two nines

[scrollaway]

Should've listened to Herman Cain :)

[cyberax]

"Have you tried turning it off and on?"