The GOP Rerun

Years ago, well before Hulu, DVRs, and the Internet, people used to sleepwalk through their summer television viewing. Summertime used to be filled with re-runs and the only new shows were second tier fillers summoned to replace failed TV shows. And people used to complain and complain that outside of these shows. Even today, people get annoyed when they want to watch their favorite show, and it turns out to be a re-run.

And a re-run was what went the American people just went through. For those reading this that may be too young to remember the late 1990’s when Newt Gingrich was behind the government shutdown, what we went through this past week was just that, a re-run.

Only this time, the Republicans seemed to ratchet up a notch. This time, they opted to take the Affordable Healthcare Act and use that as leverage to hold the American people hostage. And despite how conservative news outlets like Fox News and CNN may have tried to play it off, it were the republicans that tried to hold the US hostage.

Let’s now take a look at what the GOP temper tantrum cost us. $24 billion dollars. Yes, 24 billion, billion with a B. So the party, who claims their hallmark is smaller government and less spending, just cost this country 24 Billion dollars. Federal parks lost revenue because of the shutdown. Retail stores like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Kmart lost money because people were afraid to spend money, especially those folks on SNAP. Consumer confidence waned, and with the debt ceiling default looming, the US credit was downgraded to a AAA with negative rating, meaning, in a sense, the money was still good, however, tread lightly.

Now thankfully, the furloughed workers are getting back pay, despite Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, and David Vitter, all republicans, fighting the measure, saying that since the workers were not actually working, they did not deserve pay for those two weeks. And yes, you did read that right, they actually fought to keep them from getting money for lost work hours they had no control over losing.

However, considering that we may face this all over again to start 2014, it is no wonder that consumer confidence is going to slowly in its rebound. Our government is becoming so unstable that people are now afraid to spent money.  Especially those people who are on food stamps.

Now, before anyone goes off thinking that people on food stamps don’t contribute to the economy, let’s clear up that thinking. Food stamps work like credit cards. Each month, an individual on food stamps gets an established credit or food stamp limit. They then go to the store, spend money on food, and use that food to feed themselves and their families. If you take these food stamps away, these people aren’t going to the store, and instead will have to lean on food kitchens instead. What that means that the food they would have purchased in stores, stays on store shelves. That means those stores, and the makers of the products they would have purchased, lose money in loss of sale. It’s that simple. So forget the Ayn Rand bullshit that these people are takers. They are, in fact, functioning members of society who contribute to the local economy. By the way, I could insert a joke on during the waning years of her life, that Ayn Rand collected those social security checks that she’d spent a lifetime bashing, but that’s just too easy of a target.

Now, let’s shift out focus back to the political landscape. This morning, I was re-reading (maybe for the zillionth time) a book called Secret Lives of the US Presidents by Cormac O’Brein. I was reading the chapter on Benjamin Harrison. Harrison was a rather mundane president, not really a memorable guy. Some of his exploits include marrying his late wife’s niece, and when his children objected to the union, he not only cut them out of his will, but he also cut them out of his life, refusing to ever speak to them again. Known as the human iceberg for his cold personality, Harrison’s administration also saw wild spending. Known as the Billion Dollar Congress, the Republican dominated congress spent money like it was going out of print. It would lead to his downfall and ouster as president.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and that is where we are right now. The GOP, who claim to be the penny pinchers and calorie counters, now have a 7% approval rating the lowest ever since polls were first recorded. They cost this nation dearly, in stature, economic status, worldview, and it may have led to the downfall of their own party. They got into bed with the Tea Party radicles, and now they may pay for it. As we circle this back to the afore mentioned President Benjamin Harrison, we look at how the GOP ignored the wishes of the American people, got drunk with power, and it led to their ouster during the following round of elections. And ignoring the will of the American people has been what the party, along with its Tea Party radicals, has been doing for the last few weeks. The American people do want to take the new health care law for a test drive. And if it fails to catch on, guess what happens, it ceases to be. And for all of those talking about website glitches, citing that as a reason why the new health care is “failing”, that is a red herring talking point. Web sites crash all of the time. How many times have you attempted to log onto Facebook or Twitter only to have an error message appear? Every website can only take so much traffic before it causes a crash, hell, I’m sure any hacker could tell you that.  So don’t let them use “website crashes” as a reason not to visit the page.

And that has been the GOP calling card for much of 2013, fear and terror. And then finally, despite the fact that the highest court in the land up held the law, and the fact that they ran on their own health care law platform, and lost badly, the GOP ignored the wishes of the American people, took them hostage, took the US economy hostage, and nearly utterly derailed this nation. Keep that in mind, when you go to the polls come election time.

 

Government Shutdown, Health Care reform, and puppet strings

And here we sit, the Government still in a shutdown, the Republican Party still acting like a bunch of spoiled brats. It is amusing to hear them say that no one in America wants the Affordable Healthcare Act (though Americans are signing up by the thousands). Now we are staring at the debt ceiling issue, and will the Republican party actually risk destroying the value of the American dollar simply over Americans being allowed to have health care.

Now, before anyone goes on a rant saying it’s not fair to blame the GOP for the shutdown, well, you’re wrong. Here’s the deal. The Republican’s ran on a platform that included a different health care plan, one that would allow Americans to have vouchers. That plan, along with many Republicans, was defeated, most notably, in the bid for the White House, in which the voters overwhelming rejected the Paul Ryan/Mitt Rommney plan.

So, now that the voters rejected them, the GOP decided they were going to go the route of the Supreme Court. The court, upheld the law. Now the GOP was left with very little choice. They get either go along with the law for now, hope it fizzled, and use that to regain the White House, or they could take more drastic measures. Now, twenty years ago, they would have gone for option A. That was then, this is now. Now the GOP has been corrupted by the Tea Party Extremist. The Tea Party folk want to roll back women’s rights, such as control over their own reproductive organs. They want to roll back civil rights, as they have done everything but get the amendment that bans poll taxes (Amendment XXIV for those playing at home) repealed.  The Tea Party extremist have also said that the want to get rid of certain parts of the Federal Government, such as FEMA, the FDA, EPA, BOE, FBI, and the CIA. All very vital, if sometimes flawed parts of the Federal Government.  And these are the same ones that are actually looking forward to America to be unable able to pay her bills for the first time in history, thus throwing the world market into a spiral, and perhaps, devaluing the US currency to a point with it would carry little value worldwide.

Now, for those watching Fox News, you’d think that raising the debt ceiling allows the federal government to spend more money. That is 100 % incorrect. It’s a flat out falsehood, and it used to be that if a news agency with intent ran a false story like Fox is doing with the Debt Ceiling, there would be serious repercussions.

“From the Treasury dept. official website:
The debt limit is the total amount of money that the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments. The debt limit does not authorize new spending commitments. It simply allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congresses and presidents of both parties have made in the past.   

Failing to increase the debt limit would have catastrophic economic consequences. It would cause the government to default on its legal obligations – an unprecedented event in American history. That would precipitate another financial crisis and threaten the jobs and savings of everyday Americans – putting the United States right back in a deep economic hole, just as the country is recovering from the recent recession.   

Congress has always acted when called upon to raise the debt limit. Since 1960, Congress has acted 78 separate times to permanently raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit – 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents.  In the coming weeks, Congress must act to increase the debt limit. Congressional leaders in both parties have recognized that this is necessary. Recently, however, a number of myths about this issue have begun to surface”

Need more proof:

http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/Documents/Debt%20Limit%20Myth%20v%20Fact%20FINAL.pdf

As you can clearly see, the raising of the debt limit does not give the federal government the power to spend more money and raise more debt.

I still remain fully confident that an agreement will be reached, and that all of the furloughed workers will be back to work. However, with approval ratings at an all-time low, the Republican Party may never recover from this. They could very well join such political parties such as the Whigs and the Know-Nothings in the history dust bin. Just another political party that after years of glory, faded away because it refused and was inflexible when it came to changing with the times. We are seeing perhaps, the splitting in two of the party, and from the ashes, out comes the Tea Party. Then again, considering that it is mainly tea party supported government shutdown, which has led to the mess we are in, maybe they will fade away as a fringe group, not unlike the Bull-Moose party from over a hundred years ago. I’m not sure, but we could see a major shift in the balance of power in the political landscape of America.

As I type this blog, the powers in Washington continue to have meetings, and the give and take game continues to be played. Some people get upset when the GOP is blamed for the inaction in Washington. Well, simply put, it is the truth. Maybe it’s because I watch a lot of C-Span and I get to see it live, that I don’t fall under the spell of what CNN and Fox News “Report”. The GOP was told countless times to table the issue of the Affordable Health Care Act, and put forth a budget. They refused to listen, and that’s how we ended up here. The GOP has spoken of website crashes as a ploy to keep people from signing up or thinking they won’t be able to at all. Here’s a little news flash: All websites crash.  A website is like a highway. Once the highway is jammed up with traffic, no one else can use it. The system simply can’t take any more users until someone gets off. How many times has Twitter or Facebook been unavailable because of high usage? Plenty and that is all that happened to the Affordable Healthcare Act URL. So next time you hear Louie Gormert, or John Boehner talk about website crashes, see through the BS and know they are grasping at straws.

By the way, there is a very simple cure for what is going on in Washington. Do not vote for anyone with ties to the Koch Brothers or the Tea Party.  They are the true cause for what is going on, they are the ones pulling the strings of the GOP, causing the party to have a fall from grace. It’s that simple.