I'm getting more than a little tired of the gamesmanship of the nut fringe of the Republican Party....What good can come of this?
I'll wait!!!!
(Crickets!!)
Yeah, just what I thought....
What looked last week like a game of political hot potato has become a high-stakes game of chicken, with continued operation of the federal government and possible wider impact on the overall economy hanging in the balance.
In a move that makes a shutdown appear very likely, House Republicans approved a spending plan early Sunday morning that would delay so called Obamacare for a year and repeal its tax on medical devices.
The temporary budget resolution now goes back to the Senate, where Democrats have consistently said any changes to President Barack Obama's signature health care law would be a deal-killer.
On top of that, Obama has already issued a veto threat.
If Washington can't reach a deal, a government may very well be shutdown by the time you are reading this sometime on Tuesday Morning...
Congress could avert a shutdown by passing a temporary spending measure while the two chambers work out their differences.
"Tomorrow, the Senate will do exactly what we said we would do and reject these (House) measures," Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, said in a statement issued Sunday evening. Jentleson continued, "At that point, (House) Republicans will be faced with the same choice they have always faced: put the Senate's clean funding bill on the floor and let it pass with bipartisan votes, or force a Republican government shutdown."
You know what I think? I think the President should call the Republican/Tea Party's bluff....But that's just me...
A Senate Democratic leadership aide told CNN that on Monday the Senate will take one simple majority vote to table the various parts of the House bill with which the Senate Democratic majority disagrees. Then the Senate plans to send the same funding bill -- a bill without any changes to Obamacare -- back to the House that the House's Republican majority rejected very early Sunday morning.
This game plan avoids taking a separate vote to reinstate a controversial tax on medical devices that is repealed in the House bill. The medical devices tax has become a target of the House GOP because some Democrats do not support it three years after Obama signed the health care law.
The same aide also said that he fears House Republicans will force a shutdown of a few days before they ultimately accept the Senate's version of the funding bill. The aide noted that Democrats had already compromised in the Senate version of the funding bill by accepting a lower funding level than they wanted.
The aide had no knowledge of or expectations for any last-minute negotiations with the White House or anyone else to resolve the stand off.
As the countdown to a shutdown marched on, House Republican leaders remained defiant Sunday in their effort to chip away at , The Affordable Car Act ,also known (to them) asObamacare.
"If the Senate stalls until Monday afternoon instead of working today, it would be an act of breathtaking arrogance by the Senate Democratic leadership," House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday afternoon in a written statement. Boehner added, "I call on the Democratic leaders of the Senate to act today on the measure passed by the House last night." Who is he kidding? He knows better.
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-California, one of Boehner's top lieutenants, said Sunday that if the Senate rejects the latest House bill, House Republicans will send the Senate another bill that both funds the government and contains provisions regarding Obamacare.
"I think the House will get back together -- in enough time -- send another provision, not to shut the government down, but to fund it," McCarthy said on "Fox News Sunday," "and it will have other options in there (about Obamacare) for the Senate to look at again."
"We are not shutting the government down," McCarthy insisted when asked whether he was willing to risk the first shutdown of the federal government since 1996. "While the president was out golfing (Saturday) and the senators went home, we were here working till 1 a.m. to make sure we didn't shut the government down, that we put a funding bill across."
Asked whether the House would consider passing a funding bill without any provisions regarding Obamacare and with votes from House Democrats, McCarthy would not commit to that course of action and, instead, said again that the next bill the House passes will address Obamacare in some way.
McCarthy did, however, leave open the possibility of a stopgap funding measure that funded the federal government for a few days in order to avoid a shutdown.
"We will not shut the government down," McCarthy said. "If we have to negotiate a little longer, we will continue to negotiate."
"We do not want to shut the government down," McCarthy added.
Boehner's and McCarthy's focus on House GOP efforts to avoid a shutdown by working late into the night Saturday were echoed by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chairwoman of the House GOP Conference.
We were there almost till midnight last night, working on the bill, passing the bill, got even some Democrat support in the House, and yet the Senate won't even come back today," McMorris Rodgers, of Washington state, said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.
"They're the ones playing games," she continued. "They need to act. They're the ones that are truly threatening a government shutdown by not being here and acting."
The House Republicans held a news conference on the steps of the Senate side of the Capitol Sunday evening where GOP lawmakers sought to fix blame for a shutdown on the Democratically-controlled Senate.
Can't we all Just get along?
"This is the old football strategy," Rep. Tim Griffin of Arkansas said while holding a football. "When you get to where you want to be in a football game, you run out the clock."
And Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, was more blunt. The GOP lawmaker said Obama wants a shutdown, and she had a message for her colleagues in the upper chamber. "Senate, get on back to town," she said.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida continued to insist that Republicans stop their effort to link continued funding of the government or raising the debt ceiling to repealing, delaying, or modifying Obamacare.
"I hope (the current stalemate) ends with cooler heads prevailing on the Republican side of the aisle," the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.
The Florida Democrat compared the Republican strategy -- linking funds for the government with changes and delays to the health care law -- to holding the economy hostage and playing chicken with the country's economic stability.
"That's totally and wholly irresponsible," she said of the GOP's strategy.
"Would you," Wasserman Schultz added, "if you didn't like the redesign of your kitchen -- would you burn the whole house down? Or would you try to make modifications to the kitchen? These people have come unhinged."
Yes...I agree..
The Democrat said that once the threat of the government shutdown was taken off the table, her party and Republicans should work together to ensure smooth implementation of Obamacare.
The decision to vote late Saturday night on the House amendments modifying an earlier Senate funding bill emerged from a rare weekend GOP caucus meeting called by House Speaker John Boehner. The votes, taken after midnight Sunday, were 231-192 for the Obamacare delay, and 248-174 for the medical device tax repeal, mostly along party lines.
Two Democrats broke rank and voted for the Obamacare delay: Mike McIntyre of North Carolina and Jim Matheson of Utah.
Seventeen Democrats voted for the tax repeal.
Meanwhile, a bill to guarantee pay for military personnel during any shutdown passed 423-0.
House Republicans had said they wanted to stop as much of the president's health law as possible. The medical device tax is one of the more controversial taxes in the law, with Republicans saying it sends jobs overseas.
Democrats, particularly those from states or districts with medical device manufacturers, have spoken out against the tax.
"Republicans have pointed out over and over (Saturday) that many Democrats in the Senate are already on record voting for this repeal," said Dana Bash, CNN's chief.congressional correspondent. "So that's why they're trying to put Democrats there in a box."
"But we're already being told by Democratic sources in the Senate that they feel they're going to keep all of their senators in line," she said.
Before the House vote late Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called the Republican strategy "pointless" and said the Democratic-led Senate would reject the GOP alternatives. The White House said Obama would veto the House proposal if it reached his desk.
A separate White House statement said voting for the GOP measure "is voting for a shutdown."
Tea party conservatives want to halt Obamacare now, just as full implementation of its individual health care exchanges begins in the new fiscal year starting Tuesday.
More moderate Republicans, such as veteran Sens. John McCain of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas, criticize the strategy of tying a government shutdown to undermining the health care reform law passed by Democrats in 2010 and upheld by the Supreme Court last year.
President Obama said Friday that new exchanges for private health insurance under the reforms will open this week as scheduled -- even if there is a government shutdown.
"The House Republicans are so concerned with appeasing the tea party that they have threatened a government shutdown or worse unless I gut or repeal the Affordable Care Act," President Obama said. "That's not going to happen."
And it shouldn't have to happen. These Tea Party goofs are just engaging in political theatre...The Affordable Care Act was voted into law in 2010....It was upheld by the Supreme Court...LAST YEAR...The truth of the matter is...They don't have a solution, they don't have an alternative plan..They've got nothing.....Their main goal is just to disrupt the President as much as possible...
And so I ask again....In the end...What good will come of all of this....
That's alright...I've got plenty of time!
I'll wait!
1 comment:
Keith, you know I'm a union sympathizer. One of my favorite chants about getting a contract states "If we don't get it, we shut it down!" Sometimes drastic measures are needed to start negotiations. We THREATEN a shutdown to make employers aware of our desires, then we negotiate. In my 14 years with my union we have threatened repeatedly and negotiated strongly. We were right in our demands and the employers were interested in continuing their businesses, so we came to agreements.
That's where I see a major difference. I think teaparty types don't want a resolution. They want to shutdown everything even realizing the devastation a shutdown will cause. Am I the only one who remembers the republican candidates' debate when all of them said that the uninsured should be left to die!! Folks were in the audience cheering when Ron Paul said too bad for them if the churches didn't help them. Remember when Mitt Romney said that if you didn't have health insurance when you need it, then you should have gotten it before. He was sorry that you'd just have to die because you made a bad choice! These guys are beyond the pale. Lord, help your children!!
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