can anyone summarize whats going on in a very concise and quick format? i'm over here in island land and i have no idea what's going on in the world (just that there are a lot of unhappy people on fb) and while i'd love to go searching around (okay not really), we are in midterms for the next 10 days.
making a rant thread here has me a little extra curious now
Sure. It's really not too complicated.
Congress has a very important job: They have to pass a spending bill to fund governmental programming that has already been agreed upon in the budgeting process. The US government's fiscal year is October 1 to September 30; so they need a new spending bill by October 1 of every year in order to keep paying for all the stuff they already agreed to spend money on.
The House Republicans are insisting that they will only pass a spending bill that does not fund Obamacare.
The Senate Democrats and the President are insisting that they won't vote (or sign) any spending bill that doesn't include funding for it.
Since the House+Senate can't put together a spending bill that they both agree upon and that the President will sign, it's a nice little deadlock. Since the government has no authority to spend money after October 1st, the government has no ability to pay for anything (not exactly true; it has resources to continue to manage critical needs).
The shutdown will end with the House+Senate agree on a spending bill that the President signs.
There ya go. The shutdown in an objective, super-oversimplified nutshell.
Editorializing, the GOP is off its frickin' rocker. Obamacare was passed into law a few YEARS ago. It passed the House. It passed the Senate. It was signed by the President. It was even frickin' reviewed by the Supreme Court for constitutionality. It went through the entire legal process from oral cavity to anus. It's one thing to be a Republican (or whatever) and not like it. That's fine. It's another thing to hold a gun to the political process and refuse to pay for something *that was already agreed upon*. That's terrorism, and in my opinion every last Republican refusing to get on board with this ought to be put in jail. They are beyond political disagreement - they are clear out into "you are unstable and need to be locked away" land.
I get that they hate Obama. Fine. Whatever. Provide a better candidate and beat him next time 'round. If you do I might even vote for him or her. (Ha. Just kidding. Not much chance of that anymore.)
I get that they hate Obamacare. Fine. Whatever. You fought against it and lost in the political process. It's here now. Deal with it. Use the CORRECT political process to try and undo it.
But their behavior now is irresponsible, immature, dangerous, and ought to be criminal. It is TRULY the equivalent of the childish "my way or I throw a tantrum."
I dunno. I don't follow politics like I did back in my newspaper reporting days when I hung with Senators and Representatives and pestered them with predictable questions to get predictable soundbites. A lot of people speculate that really, the GOP is afraid of Obamacare not because they're so positive it won't work, but because they're afraid it might. Dunno if I really buy that; I don't think the GOP is organized enough anymore to manage that level of rational thought. But it's possible. I had dinner with a longtime MN State Senator a few months back (totally random; my wife and I were seated next to him and his wife at a dinner theater and we recognized each other from 'back in the day'). He was a staunch Republican back then. He went on and on about his departure from the Republican side and the almost unbelievable problems with that party now. It was bizarre; he and I used to be on opposite sides of the table, and here we were in complete agreement.
For my money, I think the GOP is going to have to do something spectacular to win back some of the key voters they've lost. I'm not sure what that would be, but it would start with the party jointly saying "We are sorry. We are cleaning house and getting rid of people like Ted Cruz. We want to be legitimate contributors to the political process again." Until they get their heads back on straight, they're going to continue to flounder. The only reason they haven't gone completely under is because the DFL is only marginally better organized. If the DFL were truly a unified party that could work together well, the GOP would be effectively dead by now.
I spent the majority of my life a dual-party voter because I believed in voting for the best person, even if my politics didn't align with them. But for a number of years now I've been a DFL-down-the-line voter because the GOP has gone utterly insane. It's honestly hard for me to imagine what they could do to win back even a single vote from me in a local race, much less a vote in a bigger race.
Ok. Rant over. Sorry. Sore spot.
he wasn't.
