The federal government has been shut down now for almost two weeks.
The immediate cause was the failure of Congress to agree to a continuing resolution that paid the bills already incurred. A faction of the Republican House of Representatives -- the so-called Tea Party elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2012's gerrymandered red districts -- insisted that any CR -- which is beltway-speak for the "Continuing Resolution" needed to fund the government in the absence of a legislatively approved and Presidentially-signed real budget -- include provisions that would have delayed the individual mandate that was about to take effect under the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare, and repeal the medical devices tax, which the Act also authorized to in part fund it.
Obama and the Democrats, to their everlasting credit, refused to be party to this extortion. The individual mandate took effect on October 1. The Tea Party then shut down the government.
So the poor and the near poor can now start to get health insurance.
Which is good.
Because, as the shut down continues and the states begin to run out of funds, they soon will not be getting food stamps or any other parts of America's increasingly frayed safety net.
Because, as the shut down continues and the states begin to run out of funds, they soon will not be getting food stamps or any other parts of America's increasingly frayed safety net.
John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, has taken on the aspect of a balloon losing air.
He has moved erratically from one position to another, forever announcing new deals his caucus in the House will (or may) agree to in exchange for reopening the government. One day it was delay the mandate and repeal the device tax. Another it was open the government in exchange for a laundry list of worn our GOP demands -- delay Obamacare, repeal the device tax, fast-track authority to overhaul the tax code to lower taxes on corporations, approve the Keystone pipeline, more off-shore oil and gas production, and more energy permits to drill on federal land.
Lately, as we have approached the point in October when the debt ceiling will have to be raised, lest a defunded government also become a defaulting one, they have suggested they may agree to reopen in exchange for an unspecified amount of deficit reduction.
The House has also passed a series of bills to fund selective portions of the federal government -- the military, national parks, and a lot of the other stuff even their own constituents like. This, of course, is more or less an a la carte approach to government. If it ever takes hold, watch out. The next time the Democrats own the House, they can shut things down in exchange for immigration reform, real curbs on climate change, or liberal judges.
I can't wait.
The parties' menus here are rather large.
He has moved erratically from one position to another, forever announcing new deals his caucus in the House will (or may) agree to in exchange for reopening the government. One day it was delay the mandate and repeal the device tax. Another it was open the government in exchange for a laundry list of worn our GOP demands -- delay Obamacare, repeal the device tax, fast-track authority to overhaul the tax code to lower taxes on corporations, approve the Keystone pipeline, more off-shore oil and gas production, and more energy permits to drill on federal land.
Lately, as we have approached the point in October when the debt ceiling will have to be raised, lest a defunded government also become a defaulting one, they have suggested they may agree to reopen in exchange for an unspecified amount of deficit reduction.
The House has also passed a series of bills to fund selective portions of the federal government -- the military, national parks, and a lot of the other stuff even their own constituents like. This, of course, is more or less an a la carte approach to government. If it ever takes hold, watch out. The next time the Democrats own the House, they can shut things down in exchange for immigration reform, real curbs on climate change, or liberal judges.
I can't wait.
The parties' menus here are rather large.
Throughout this debacle, the GOP has been apoplectic in insisting that Obama and the Democrats "negotiate" with them. In truth, however, there is nothing to negotiate. It is more than arguably the case that every demand made by the Tea Party in the course of the last month has been soundly defeated at the polls. Whatever else it was, the 2012 Presidential election was clearly a referendum on Obamacare, and Obama won.
The same is true with the deficit, which in any case has been dropping like a rock for much of the last year and does not need any more assistance from Congress. In fact, further deficit reduction can only imperil our shaky economic recovery, which itself is being kept in place largely by the Fed's quantitative easing in the face of Washington's inability to even contemplate, let alone fashion, effective (and expansionary) fiscal policy (like clean energy and infrastructure repair and development).
The same is true with the deficit, which in any case has been dropping like a rock for much of the last year and does not need any more assistance from Congress. In fact, further deficit reduction can only imperil our shaky economic recovery, which itself is being kept in place largely by the Fed's quantitative easing in the face of Washington's inability to even contemplate, let alone fashion, effective (and expansionary) fiscal policy (like clean energy and infrastructure repair and development).
Though Big Oil wants Keystone, the project is an environmental killer, helping to enlarge a fossil-fuel induced carbon footprint at precisely the point we need to reduce it. And, in any case, the project will produce none of the benefits its proponents are claiming -- the bulk of the oil will be exported, the construction jobs are short term, and there is no local economic multiplier effect from a pipe in the plains states.
Supporters claim extracting oil from the Alberta tar-sands for export abroad will happen anyway, via a transcontinental pipeline to the Pacific in the event Keystone is killed. But tell that to the people in British Columbia, who apparently haven't read the memo. They oppose it. And so, apparently, does President Obama.
Supporters claim extracting oil from the Alberta tar-sands for export abroad will happen anyway, via a transcontinental pipeline to the Pacific in the event Keystone is killed. But tell that to the people in British Columbia, who apparently haven't read the memo. They oppose it. And so, apparently, does President Obama.
But I digress.
On the shut down, none of what the GOP instantly demands is at all possible for them to even eventually get.
Bills could be proposed. Committee hearings could occur. But, at the end of the day, the Tea Party doesn't have the votes to dictate their agenda, or even all that much of it, in the regular order of things.
So, not to put too fine a point on it, they have become . . .
Irregular.
This is more than dangerous. On the debt ceiling, Boehner and the Tea-Partiers are flirting with another economic meltdown that has even their most committed financial backers on Wall Street frothing at the mouth. In fact, Wall Street is starting to have a pretty bad case of buyer's remorse. Though it funded the GOP House into existence, it can't herd the conservative cats now reeking havoc.
Still, however, there is no real end game in sight.
Q: When do squirrels gather nuts?
A: When they are available.
Q: When is that?
A: Usually in the Fall.
Bring on the squirrels.
We have plenty of nuts.
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