A few dozen Republican lunatic zealots, enabled and abetted by many more pseudo-sane Republicans, damaged America's reputation, its economy, and its borrowing power over the last 16 days of their insane acting out.
The fact that they put the pin back in the grenade at the very last moment does NOT make it alright. They must be held accountable.
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees were unemployed for over two weeks. About 4 million more worked without pay for the duration. While all are expected to receive compensation at some point, this is no way to make a statement about fiscal responsibility.
Jobs in the private sector, especially ones dependent upon federal employee spending, grants, or keeping government sites open, were also lost. Small businesses were damaged, without anticipated Small Business Administration loans coming through. Large businesses, whose third quarter earnings data are now coming out, are pulling back on their fourth quarter expectations. Regular families will think twice about their holiday spending. Consumer confidence is down.
Interest rates on T-bills due around the time of the new deadlines of January 15 and February 7 are already spiking, as prudent investors recognize the risk that these lunatic zealots will hold the USA and its full faith and credit hostage yet again.
According to Standard & Poors, the shutdown cost the US economy $24 BILLION and cut growth in the next quarter by at least 0.6 %.
President Obama and the Democrats held firm - for the first time in recent memory - denying the hostage takers any payment. Whether or not this will be enough to keep them from trying it again waits to be seen.
Speaker Boehner's performance was instrumental to the lunatic zealots' prolonged influence. He was clearly erratic in the last couple of days, trying to torpedo an emerging Senate bill with an on-again-off-again-back-on-again-back-off-again proposal to come from the House.
Minority Leader McConnell was gifted a $2.9 BILLION appropriation for Kentucky hidden in the bill that passed both Chambers last night.
The Senate voted 83-16 to fund the government to January 15 and raise the debt ceiling to February 7. You can check how your Senators voted here. The House voted 285-144 on the bill. You can check how your Representative voted here. For Indiana, both Senators Coats (R) and Donnelly (D) and Representatives Visclosky (D), Carson (D), Brooks (R), and Young (R) voted in favor. Representatives, all Republican, Walsorski, Stutzman, Rokita, Messer, and Buschon voted against.
If you know a lunatic zealot, you don't give them the keys to your car, much less the keys to your gun safe. The Republicans in Congress must take away the keys from those in their caucus who would take aim on the economy of the US and the world again. Voters need to step up and unseat the lunatic zealots and replace them with sane public servants when next they are up for election. Otherwise, there is no telling how much more damage these people are willing to inflict upon us all.
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6 comments:
Actually the lunatics in both parties are damaging America. Until the fringe on both sides are dealt with, the people will continue to suffer.
No. We are not going to do this 'equal treatment' BS. This one was entirely the doing of the Republicans.
End of story. Time to fix your party. If you care about the real
America.
Today I learned that Had Enough Indy is run by a socialist.
When would you propose balancing the budget ? When our debt-to-GDP ratio hits 250 percent, like Japan ?
Why do we even have an SBA ? It's a corporate welfare program.
Why do you want the IRS administering your healthcare coverage ?
What have these things to do with shutting down the government and damaging our Country's economy?
Each of your posits are rife with errors, as well. The bubble is a kind way to say that lies are being formulated and circulated to make people fearful, angry and more apt to donate money and vote for nuts.
17 Trillion in debt is real lunacy.
Obamacare is real lunacy.
Much of the current debt is due to avoiding a depression, caused by Mr. Bush and his lack of oversight of banks, and his penchant for starting wars in countries unassociated with 9-11.
Obamacare is not lunacy, but a wealthy nation coming to grips with the lunacy of the expense of health care. The US spends more per capita and a greater percentage of GDP on health care than any other country. What do we get for that? We rank 46 of 48 industrialized countries in quality of health care.
Personally, I'd prefer single payer system. But, Obamacare will stop the practice of denying health insurance to those with preexisting conditions, drop expense to hospitals for emergency room visits from those with inadequate or no health insurance, and cut back on the extravagant use of premium payments for outrageous administrative costs and salaries by health insurance companies. All while decreasing the national debt and handing quite a nice bottom line boost to insurance companies.
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