Personally, since my passport is current and I don’t plan on visiting any National Parks, I don’t care if most of the government shuts down tomorrow. My strong preference is that the Democrats refuse to fund the government until the Republicans have all missed their Christmas celebrations. That should be their punishment for being what can only be described as “unrelenting dicks.” Just to give you one example of the GOP’s bad behavior, Senate Minority Leader blocked the Senate from voting on the payroll bill that Speaker Boehner passed in the House. Why? Because he didn’t want his members to have to vote on it since it won’t pass and many in his caucus don’t support all of its provisions.
It’s appropriate that Newt Gingrich is in the news a lot lately, because he once thought that the president would get blamed for a government shutdown only to discover that people blamed him. We’ve lived through this before, and all Boehner and McConnell’s tricks aren’t going to help them avoid responsibility.
Their strategy is to claim that they passed a payroll tax holiday and unemployment extension in the House and that Harry Reid is holding up the appropriations bills for political reasons. This argument, they hope, will prevent the people from seeing that their extreme and unpopular efforts to shield and protect the richest 2% of the country from any taxation are the real problem.
I don’t know CNN‘s source for saying that the Democrats are dropping their demand for a surtax on millionaires. No one else is reporting that. If the Dems actually do formally drop that demand, it will help them win the argument over who is to blame for the shutdown, but it will undermine their moral standing with the public. Maybe after the government has been shut down for a little while the Dems can relent on their core demand. Doing it preemptively in exchange for nothing? That would be bad negotiating, and subpar politics.
In any case, I’d expect a Continuing Resolution that lets the bastards go home and spend time with their families. That’s what the White House is asking for at this point. Although, that, too, is part of their pre-shutdown positioning. If the government shuts down, it’s because the Republicans couldn’t even pass a CR.
It would be nice to see the Democrats stand firm, call their bluff and then go out and talk loudly about the obstructionism of the Republican Congress.
I’m not holding my breath, however.
I wish just this once the Dems would hold firm. It’s become increasingly apparent to all but the NeoConfederates and potted plants that their crap is not helping the country. If the GOP is so determined to replay history, then make them answer for it.
I personally would also like to see a shutdown and have Dems stay firm on their position. But then I don’t risk much by it. I would be interested to know who might be badly hurt by a shutdown. Some key services always seem to be excepted.
Well, for one, all of the federal employees, and all of the restaurants, stores, etc., in the DC area that depend on federal workers. In the past, the gov’t has always paid the salaries of the non-contract, actual federal workers after the fact. But given this House, I don’t know if that can be counted upon, and the contract workers get screwed anyway. My wife is a federal employee, and if they do shut it down, we will have to go into austerity mode…just what the local economy needs, especially at Christmas.
Basically they’re putting the proposition that you can’t fool all the people all the time to a serious test. I don’t know if that’s a deliberate intention, but it’s certainly the effect of their actions.
What they’re telling voters right now is that they’d rather raise taxes on the middle class than on wealthy people. And of course they’re going to pretend that’s not what they’re telling us, but in the meanwhile they’re all going to be out on the campaign trail defending the Ryan budget and calling for even yet still more massive tax cuts for the Koch brothers.
Oh, and if you’re gay, Muslim, Mexican, a union member, a public employee, an atheist, unemployed, a feminist, an intellectual, an immigrant, or even remotely sympathetic to the Palestinians, fuck you. And then they’re going to see how many people vote for them.
Again, I’m not convinced more than 15-20 percent of Americans are paying attention to these issues to the level of detail in Bloggo world.
Thus the partisan blame game is more or less pointless.
One more time: The approval rating of congress is a pathetic 10-15%. Please show me the poll indicating democratic voters approve of democratic congresspeople above 30%.