Wednesday, October 9, 2013

GOP Wheezing, Gasping, and Trying to Add Hostages to Its Shutdown

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The Republican shutdown of the federal government has dragged into its second week with few people speaking openly of ending the pitiful affair.  But whether they are talking of an end game or not, the American people are beginning to have their say - and that is bad news for the tea-bagger hostage takers.

The Associated Press, a relatively trustworthy news organization, released its most recent poll today showing that 62% of those surveyed blame Republicans for the current shutdown.  A Washington Post / ABC poll released yesterday noted that 70% of Americans disapprove of how Republicans are handling the budget negations.  (Sixty-one percent disapprove of the job Democrats are doing on the negotiations, and 51% don't like the way the President is negotiating.)

But those are just polls, and the best polls remain those where people are actually voting.

Yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina, a fairly conservative and Republican area, Democrats retook control of the school board and "swept" the city council races.  And those good voters also elected a Democrat to be their new mayor.

Signs of things to come?  It's almost a situation where all the Democrats need to sit on its collective hands and just keep quiet while the Republicans flush themselves out to sea.

Congressman Paul Ryan, the GOP's budget guru and former veep candidate, had an opinion piece in today's Murdoch Daily (The Wall Street Journal) in which he proposed "modest" reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code in order to end the stalemate.  He didn't mention Obamacare by name, so Fox lit into him.  As he hastily backtracked, Budget Boy noted that "entitlement programs" would necessarily include Obamacare.

Entitlement programs also include Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Add those hostages to the mix, Paul, and see how fast the public shuts down your crime spree!

2 comments:

Xobekim said...

What is clear is that the big money wants to repeal every progressive step the nation has taken since FDR and the New Deal.

Go to the Library of Congress web portal called Thomas and look up the Enumerated Powers Act of 2013. This nifty bill, sponsored by Oklahoma's Tom Coburn with 26 GOP Senate cosponsors, sets the stage to let the Supreme Court take America back to the Lochner Era.

They are planning to repeal the child labor laws, which makes Republican governors underfunding education seem reasonable. Also on the block are OSHA, mine saftey laws, the NLRB, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, thus the end of the EPA. It is a harsh and draconian agenda.

For them to get back to the era of unlimited profits for the gilded few a little pain must be suffered. Hence, the shutdown.

Don said...

Obviously, the problem here is that the rich don't have enough money