Bill Maher said it best when he said " we do not have a left and right party anymore. We have a center right party and a crazy party. And Over the last 30 odd years the Democrats have moved to the right and Republicans has moved into a mental hospital." This recent plan of Republicans to threaten to destroy the economy unless they are given their agenda has proved how mentally unstable they and unfit for office they truly are. We know how much economic harm their 2011 threat to default caused the country. I believe the CBO said the threat alone caused the goverment to lsoe almost $20 billion in revenue in 2011. I applaud Obama for not giving in to them as they will keep making demands threatening to hurt the country over and over until someone finally stands up to them and said no.
The Dems had to do whatever they could to buy the 60 votes needed to get the bill out of the Senate. They had to add many unpalatable provisions to do so. If memory serves NOT ONE Rep voted for the bill even tho it's based on their own candidate Romney's signature accomplishment in Massachusetts. Had any Reps voted for what's best for the country rather than what their party wanted, a "clean" healthcare bill could've been passed without all the under the table deals. Add that to the Medicare Part D fiasco pushed through by the Reps and the two wars the Reps funded by reducing income taxes and you have the makings of 1) our current annual budget deficit and 2) the massive total debt. I'm no fan of Obama but he's boxed in by the debt service payments, the military budget, and the untouchable Medicare and Social Security programs. To me the Reps have no right to complain about ANY fiscal irresponsibility now or in the future.
This piece meal bullshit is fucking stupid too. I'm okay with funding for military families, but funding for National Parks because the arepublicans are getting bad press is absurd.
the problem is that there are enough Tea Party congressmen in safely gerrymandered districts to hold their ground on this without suffering any electoral backlash back home. They aren't going to budge, because they get no reward from their constituents at all for doing so. Now's the time for whats left of the traditional country club, chamber of commerce type Republicans to grow some sack and exert some leadership and just ram a clean CR through, Tea Party nitwits be damned. Not holding my breath. Serious structural electoral reform is necessary yesterday. When a party can legally manipulate voting districts to create safe havens from which they can effectively hold the remainder of the country hostage, you can expect they will try.
There are plenty of gerrymandered Democratic Districts. The question is when will moderate Republicans support the speaker putting together a voting coalition of moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans to actually pass legislation regardless of what the extremist in the Republican party want. Maybe the problem is there aren't enough moderate Republicans?
I've been hearing a lot about this but as it doesn't directly affect me (I'm Canadian) haven't really bothered to look to much into it, I'm apathetic that way. Sorry. Can someone explain in a non-politicized way (i.e. no finger pointing as two who is at fault just the steps on how they got to this point) why this happened and what the impact is? Some people are saying they even lost their jobs. Just the concept of a government shutting down is very strange to me.
Northernjet- George Friedman at Stratfor makes an attempt to explain the why of the Shutdown. He mainly writes about foreign policy and world affairs, so it's looking at the shutdown in terms of what it does to US Foreign Policy. http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/roots-government-shutdown He makes an effort to do so without bias. As always, bias is in the eyes of the beholder . Here's the paragraph from his article that explains the "how" of the shutdown. The rest is on the "why". "It originated in a political dispute. U.S. President Barack Obama proposed and Congress approved a massive set of changes in U.S. health care. These changes were upheld in court after legal challenges. There appears to be significant opposition to this legislation according to polls, but the legislation's opponents in Congress lack the ability to repeal it and override a presidential veto. Therefore, opponents attached amendments to legislation funding government operations, and basically said that legislation would only be passed if implementation of health care reform were blocked or at least delayed. Opponents of health care reform had enough power to block legislation on funding the government. Proponents of health care reform refused to abandon their commitment for reform, and therefore the legislation to fund the government failed and the government shut down. Read more: The Roots of the Government Shutdown | Stratfor"
The reason we have a shut down right now is that Democrats and Republicans only agree on about 70% of the spending the US does and the other 30% is driving us slowly into bankruptcy. Democrats want to raise taxes and make spending cuts in programs they don't like. Republicans want to cut taxes and make many more spending cuts in programs they don't like. Neither side has the majority capable of doing what they want to do and neither side has made a strong coherent argument for their position that will result in a majority capable of enacting their agenda. Furthermore, the Republicans are losing the long term demographic war and we are likely looking at their last shot at getting their vision of America passed. If this moment passes without movement in their direction they're basically toast moving forward. The huge error that has put us on the brink was the Republicans backing away from the Grand Bargain that Boehner and Obama negotiated in the summer of 2012. That was where both parties got half what they wanted and the nations finances got much better in the process. Now we're just waiting to see what happens. Will the Republicans back down and accept ideological insignificance or will they hold to their position and put the country at grave risk?
Interesting. Still seems strange that any country, let alone the most powerful one on the planet, could just not have a functioning government. As with most of these things it's the people that suffer, not the politicians, so hopefully it's short lived and people can get back to normal shortly.
I don't think this is about health care reform at all. Watch how this changes from health care to taxes when it's clear the Republicans have lost the battle on health care. There is a power struggle going on in the Republican party between moderates who want to govern and right wing lunatics who want to disband the social safety net while being fully supportive of a police state.
The Republican party has become extremely dangerous. The extreme right wing of the Republican Party is the problem: Ideological purity. Compromise as weakness. A fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism. Denying science. Unmoved by facts. Undeterred by new information. A hostile fear of progress. A demonization of education. A need to control women's bodies. Severe xenophobia. Tribal mentality. Intolerance of dissent. Pathological hatred of the U.S. government. They can call themselves the Tea Party. They can call themselves conservatives. And they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn't. But we should call them what they are - The American Taliban. No, I call myself a Republican 'cause I am one. I believe in market solutions, and I believe in common sense realities and the necessity to defend ourselves against a dangerous world and that's about it. Problem is now I have to be homophobic. I have to count the number of times people go to church. I have to deny facts and think scientific research is a long con. I have to think poor people are getting a sweet ride. And I have to have such a stunning inferiority complex that I fear education and intellect in the 21st century. But most of all, the biggest new requirement, really the only requirement, is that I have to hate Democrats. And I have to hate Chris Christie for not spitting on the President when he got off Air Force One. The two-party system is crucial to the whole operation. There is honor in being the loyal opposition. And I'm a Republican for the same reasons you are. So I hope your voice gets louder in the next four years. Quotes from Will McAvoy - a character on HBO's The Network
They have a major track record over the last 5 years of being obstructionists. Record number of filerbusters, this shut down, the debt ceiling that caused our credit rating to go down.this has been incredibly sad.
I believe that if the debt ceiling is not raised all of the following things are likely to happen as a result: 1. The US will not default on it's debt obligations. This will be tricky but manageable. All interest will be paid and expiring bills, notes and bonds will be redeemed. The cash squeeze on government will be intense and will lead to the following likely steps. 2. Almost all government contractors will likely see payments stop temporarily. If you are a private enterprise supplying the government you will not be paid in the absence of the funds to do so. You'll be informed that further shipments/services are not to be rendered at this point and that the government will pay it's back bills when the funds are made available to do that. There are a few private contractors that will be fully paid, mainly those who assure continuity of supplies and services to US foreign postings, including all deployed and reserve troops in the field. US embassies and consulates will continue to pay their bills to avoid foreign legal entanglements. 3. Social Security checks will not be stopped in the short-term. Not sure exactly how long that posture can be maintained but in the absence of accurate means testing the government is not going to stop mailing checks to the elderly, survivors living on social security and the disabled. 4. Medicaid and Medicare will not stop being mailed and reimbursed in the short term. Again, not sure how long that can be maintained but people will not be unnecessarily put at risk until the government can figure out how to avoid that or just loses coherency and begins to dissolve. 5. All departmental work of the US government aside from that related to foreign deployments, critical military spending and the items above will likely be cut back significantly, with planning for a a short budget going into effect immediately and bills paid only if they represent an immediate hardship to a small firm or supplier. Then we'll sit and wait and see where things wind up. The government makes a huge number of payments each day. Many of those payments will not be made over the short term and private businesses that do business with the government in any non-critical endeavor are probably going to be out of luck until this gets resolved. My best guess is that once a default on any level has occurred that administrators across the government will be given instructions to begin paring contracted services dramatically with a plan for them not to resume after the crisis is over.
I think the Tea Party is going to force the government to default on some of it's obligations. I think they're too dominated by their ideology to do pragmatic things. Where we are after that is not clear. 2014 is going to be a year to remember.
Please forgive me for not being up to date with everything that is going on, being stationed overseas currently makes things difficult. That being said I am 60% republican and 40% democrat with my views for the most part. I see this very simple, if I ran my own personal business the same way the gov't is being ran currently I would be out of business. I see it like this, a budget is simple, I can not spend more than I take in. I will use my aunt in the great state of New York, I love her she is my aunt but she has been a 30+ year crack head. Has never and I mean never worked longer than 1 week in her life yet the state of New York puts her up with an apartment, provides her medical care, food, utilities, etc...at what point do you so fuck off? After 30+ years and you haven't gotten your shit together something is wrong, I shouldn't have to keep paying for this crap.
