Government Shutdown: Can I Complain?

Trust Congress to screw things up monumentally. Oh, don't worry House Republicans, I'll get to you, but right now, there's enough blame to go around. Actually, you know, what? Forget it, this is all the Republican Party's fault, and for a very good reason. Sure, Senate Democrats should have done a better job negotiating, but when there's only one other option that the Republicans have offered, there's little wonder.

All this is because the Republicans wanted to defund/repeal the Affordable Care Act. They've tried to repeal the act more times than Presidents! And, they couldn't control themselves. Case in point, Republican leadership was reportedly unhappy with Ted Cruz making his nearly day-long publicity stunt about Obamacare.

And speaking of Republican leadership, the Washington Post notes that House Speaker John Boehner isn't even in control of his own caucus (this observation has been made by many an observer, so it's hardly new). Boehner originally wanted to fund the government, but the crazies (Teabaggers) in his caucus made him go along with Ted Cruz's defund Obamacare idea.

Republicans have been complaining about the Government for years ever since Obama took office. They didn't like the idea of a Democrat being in charge, so they started throwing temper tantrums to get what they wanted. It didn't quite work out for much of that period, except when they took control at the state level and well, let's just say the result is pretty hard to decide if it's popular or not.

The last time this happened in 1995, it lasted 28 days. The last government shutdown was because of a budget dispute between Newt Gringrich's Republican party and President Bill Clinton. Given how President Obama is universally hated among anyone right of Neil Peart, I don't feel confident this one is going to end any time soon. Sorry everyone who wanted to visit Yosemite (and bad timing, Google!)!

If you want someone to blame, blame House Republicans. Their stubbornness was too much and they should have just agreed to a simple budget compromise to keep the government running. But NNNNNOOOOOOOOO! They had to be the ones who refused to compromise! Yeah, great work, dummies. We'll see you next November.