Sunday, October 6, 2013

For districts fueling the government shut down, why not shut down the government for them permanently?






By last count there are no more than 20-30 ultra right wing conservative Republican members of the House supported by another 30 or so who laughingly call themselves Tea Party "patriots", who are trying to bring down the government and are egged on by Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz. They have succeeded in intimidating that pillar of courage John Boehner into refusing to bring a clean CR to the House floor to fund the government even though a clean CR would get over 400 votes in the House with over 200 Republicans supporting it.

That handful  of of extremist conservatives, who Harry Reid has called anarchists,  come from ultra right wing districts in states like Indiana and Georgia where their constituents not only approve of the shut down, they are gleeful about it and want more. The idea is to use the shut down to extort what they couldn't get through elections since the majority of the country voted against them. The people who live in these districts have shown they  really don't care about elections or their outcomes and are unwilling to accept the democratic process. Instead they want to shove their ideology down the throats of everyone who have rejected it else because they've decided they know best. What matters to them is how much damage they can cause to the United States, something they call "leverage". They are now trying to also use raising the debt ceiling as "leverage"  making threats to cause untold damage to the United States, it's institutions, it's people and the economy.  You decide what to call these people. But whether they are called anarchists or political terrorists or any other term someone wants to use,  it's clear that Boehner and these extremist Republicans aren't much concerned about the damage they can cause and in fact for many of them, the damage is as much the point as seeing their ideological demands met.  For them its a win-win situation. Meet our demands or we burn down a House we don't like very much anyway.

 According to these Tea Party House members they are getting calls supporting the shut down by a ratio of 10-1.  They say they are getting calls from their constituents telling them  " attaboy" and "go get 'em" and not to give in over  their demand that Obamacare be repealed, something they will never get and something they continue to lie about pretending that the majority of the country rejects it which must be news to Mitt Romney. This is not to say Obamacare shouldnt be replaced with a public option or single payer system. It is only to say they are lying.

It's also telling to look at the character of some of the Tea Party supported members of congress leading the shut down and who support a United States default on its debt if their demands are not met. Representative Tom Graves who represents the 14th district who has been one of the leaders of the shutdown and supports a default was sued by a Georgia bank in 2011 for defaulting on a $2.2 million business loan.. Graves borrowed the money to open a motel, the motel went bust and when he couldnt pay the electric bill and the electric company shut off the electricity, he just closed everything down, walked away and defaulted on his debt.  This is the person the 14th district in Georgia elected to be their representative in congress. So no one should be surprised that someone like Graves, who shut down his own business when it wasn't successful and walked away from his obligations and stuck other people with his debt supports a default. Not only didnt he suffer consequences for being the dead beat failed businessman that he is, he found people gullible enough to elect him to congress.

So what should be done about all this? It's simple. Since new elections for the House are more than a year away, until then, unless the people of these districts, like the 14th in Georgia who are telling their representatives " attaboy" are the worst and lowest kind of  hypocrite they should have no problem agreeing to a law that would shut down the federal government for them permanently. Or at least until the next election. That would include banning Obamacare for everyone in these districts. But also every other federal government program and institution. And cut off all federal money to these districts.

The new law would prohibit any federal tax payer money, money from tax payers in places like New York, California, Pennsylvania,  Michigan and others states, from going to these districts for anything. Not for roads. Not for farm subsidies. Not for schools. Not for law enforcement. Nothing.  And all federally related offices would shut down and close until further notice. After all, if they support the shut down for the rest of the country they should support it for themselves.

The NY Times profiled one resident of the 14th district in Georgia who supports the shut down because, like most conservatives, what they seem to care about most is what they don't want other people to have.So shutting down the government to defund Obamacare for him is a good idea and worth the effort.

Another resident in a district supporting the shut down said he supported America defaulting on its debt if their demands aren't met and has told his representative to vote against raising the debt ceiling, something for which a case could be made is an act of treason.

 So let's give these districts what they say they want and just shut down the federal government and any services it provides for all these districts permanently or until they elect representatives who aren't irresponsible dead beats.

After this law passes they can raise their own taxes if they have to, use their own money to fix their own roads and local unemployment offices ( that's right, no more federal unemployment money for them)  or just get rid of the services they cant afford to pay for themselves.  Naturally, fair is fair and the law would allow them to keep all their own income taxes and not send a dime to the federal government.

Ted Cruz can always go to the people of Texas who elected him and tell them they need to raise  taxes in Texas so they can send the money to those districts to help them out.  Think that will go over big in Texas?    How many "attaboys" and " go get 'ems" do you think these Tea Party members of congress would get from their constituents then? 



Clearly these people don't care about the rest of America and are too short sighted to see the danger in 13,000 employees of the Center for Disease Control being furloughed, or thousands of kids being denied the Headstart program. So maybe it's time the rest of America didnt care about them and just called their own representatives to tell them to pass a bill that shuts down the federal government for these districts at least until the next congressional election in 2014.

One last bit of irony: a man from one of these districts supporting the shutdown was interviewed by the New York Times and said he had an idea for healthcare that was better than Obamacare. "I think it (healthcare) should be the same for everybody. One big company whether owned privately or by the government."

When the Times reporter informed him that what he was describing was a single payer system, the system Obama had  promised, had the votes in congress to pass in 2009 but instead caved in to both the insurance companies and the Republicans who called it socialism and then dropped it in favor of  what became Obamacare the man replied, "yeah I know. It's crazy".

That might be considered the understatement of the year.

1 comment:

Bill Cover Insurance said...

Relying on other means of financial security should be prioritized in case of another Government shut down.