The shutdown
Tuesday October 01st 2013, 10:43 pm
Filed under: Politics

Why are they acting like this? Why did, to paraphrase the President, one faction of one party of one house of one branch of the government shut down that government over one already-established law?

Here’s the best explanation I’ve found so far. There’s the small-government issue and there’s the funding of right-wing politicians via the uber-rich Koch Brothers, whose dad co-founded the John Birch Society and now with the help of Citizens United call the shots behind the scenes with all the corruption that engenders. (If they wanted employers to fund insurance or employees to just go buy it themselves, they and the Waltons and the like who run a goodly percentage of the economy should have paid them enough to be able to do so. And the health insurers should never have been allowed by Republican governors twenty years ago to change to for-profit status and throw tens of millions per year at their CEOs instead of patient care, and, business profits or no, should never have been allowed to turn applicants away.)

But the big point the writer makes is that when so many of the working poor no longer have to live in dire fear of being one medical emergency away from total catastrophe, it may be that they’ll start to vote their gratitude and relief and away from the party that, certainly in the Southern states, many of them belong to now.

The House is certainly making it a stark choice.

Speaking about how this is all going to play out for the Cruz types is an op-ed by a former Senator who was considered one of the most right-wing in his day. I didn’t always agree with his politics but I love him dearly. Go Uncle Bob–you tell’em.


10 Comments so far
Leave a comment

Yeah, me too. I noted that the workers in the local representatives and senator’s offices were told that they would not get a paycheck. Of course, guess whose paychecks continued. I don’t want to hijack your blog for political comments so I won’t say the rest of what I am thinking.

Comment by Sherry in Idaho 10.02.13 @ 7:51 am

Yeah! I sent a very polite email to John Boehner suggesting that he is really more intelligent and more rational than it would it appear. Please don’t prove me wrong.

Comment by Donald Meyer 10.02.13 @ 9:14 am

I wrote my congresspeople, criticizing and encouraging as appropriate. And I’m really glad my vacation at a national park was last month!

Comment by RobinH 10.02.13 @ 9:31 am

Bob’s column was a great one, I agree. But he was never considered far right wing; it was the far right wing that finagled the primary system in Utah and voted him out. We’re now stuck with Lee, who was right behind Cruz in this. Mom

Comment by Mom 10.02.13 @ 10:55 am

I don’t remember the source now, but there was a ranking given at the time Bob was in office of how conservative a Congressperson was based on their votes in office, and he was rated among the most conservative. It was mentioned by a reporter marveling that he wasn’t conservative enough for the Tea Party that was (successfully) primarying him.

Comment by AlisonH 10.02.13 @ 11:49 am

yup, seen this movie before — but it seems a lot of the “young whippersnappers” in Washington missed that day in history class

hope they find their version of Bob Dole soon

Comment by bev 10.02.13 @ 12:25 pm

We need a double jeopardy law for laws. Of course, someone would tie passing a continuing resolution to rescinding it…

Comment by twinsetellen 10.02.13 @ 4:33 pm

I lived through a few shutdowns in the 1980s as a Federal Employee, but this is really a stark choice-do we allow a minority of a party to just stop government? I am beyond words at the damage they are causing.

Comment by Renee 10.02.13 @ 4:46 pm

Yes! The ACA is not perfect, but it it’s a start. Thank you for sharing these pieces.

Comment by DebbieR 10.02.13 @ 9:20 pm

Interesting tidbit about the lack of knowledge and how that is framing this discussion:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/some-americans-say-they-support-the-affordable-care-act-but-not-obamacare/280165/

If you start discussing what this, flawed but better then the current broken system, act does folks actually do support it. But of course that doesn’t fit into a vitriolic sound bite.

BTW – a friend that works with the WIC program in our state says it will be shutting down in the next few weeks if this is not resolved (they are only able to stay open due to having some funds at there disposal right now). Once again the “least” among us are being harmed by these shenanigans.

Comment by wildknits 10.03.13 @ 7:08 am



Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)