And What Did We Accomplish?

Once again the adults, (this time we included several women senators) came to table to reopen the government and raise the debt limit, so we could pay our bills and put people back to work. Someone said the men caused this mess and the women came in and cleaned it up.

I don’t like Mitch McConnell but time after time, he comes in to save the day, but he also created the mayhem that started this mess. Remember, while the president and Michelle were dancing at the first inaugural ball, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and other Republicans were plotting to derail the Obama presidency. This morning McConnell is being vilified by talk radio and the hard right for (in their view) cowering to President Obama and the Democrats. The far right doesn’t know that Mitch McConnell was able to retain some leverage for the next budget fight. Mitch McConnell insisted that the sequester cuts remain in place so that the GOP could use them as a bargaining chip to get some entitlement cuts.

How can a major party complain about the debt when the shutdown cost this country $24 billion, 0.06% in GDP growth and job losses?

The sad part of all this is that the Tea Party has not learned a darn thing from all of this. This morning Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) said that all was not lost because Cory Booker only beat his Tea party opponent by 10 points, and Tom Cotton is nearly even with Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor.Rep. Salmon dismisses the 21% approval his wing of the GOP has. The Tea Party is consistent in their hate for President Obama. The members of that group always mention that the president is at the root of all our problems. I don’t doubt that we will back at the same place three months from now.

After the 2011 fiscal cliff battle, President Obama vowed not to negotiate the debt limit again. Reasonable people can differ on whether the debt limit was ever in jeopardy when attachments were added to a debt limit bill in the past. This time the debt limit was in jeopardy because some did not fear default. President Obama voted against the debt limit in 2006, but it was a show vote because he knew his colleagues would raise it. All the 2016 presidential candidates voted not to raise the debt limit last night. Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul all took advantage of their opportunity to vote no (show vote).

A lot of pundits showed their true conservative colors at CNN last night. For instance, Gloria Borger and David Gergen said last night’s voting results would embolden liberals in the Democratic Party. Senator John Tester (D-MT) said that he disagreed because he has not seen it.Embolden them to do what? The Dems are still outnumbered in the House. Liberal can do the math.

Throughout the seventeen shutdown days, the Democrats remained united even though some were allowed to vote for some bills because they were never going to pass in the Senate. That was the underlying factor. Once the Tea Party realizes that you can’t take credit for approval of anything unless it passes Senate and the president signs it, the better it will be for all.

You mean we couldn't get one Texas Republican House or Senate member  to vote to open the government? Not one democrat voted NO...just saying.

Not all Conservatives Are Good At Math

 

There’s no reason to be in this predicament because this crisis was self -manufactured. Conservatives will tell us that the debt is too high, and we need to cut back our spending and start reforming our tax code and entitlements. Who can disagree with that, as one side of the argument? That’s an argument for austerity that’s doesn’t work but we don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water.  That’s where the word compromise comes in to play.

Let’s go back a couple of weeks ago to see what the conservatives thought was important. The GOP basically said that the deficit and debt were OK because they didn’t have any problems funding the government and increasing the debt limit.  The most important thing to the House GOP was defunding Obamacare. In order to accomplish that they would need at least 289 votes in their own chamber to override a presidential veto. They have 232 party members meaning they would need 57 Democrats. They would also need to persuade 13 Senate Democrats to go along with their scheme. As a prominent Republican said, “a fool’s errand.” True conservatives can do the math.

This morning Republican representative from Wisconsin, Sean Duffy said he thought it was perfectly reasonable to put the president and Congress on Obamacare without government subsidies, as most Americans. The question I have to ask (and Mika Brzezinski did) “is this why you shut down the government? “Again we have to get back to basics. Only 15% of Americans are eligible for Obamacare.  Employer contribution is what the Congressman is calling subsidies because it makes it sound cynical. The American taxpayer is the employer of federal employees. It’s common knowledge that those in the exchange (15%) will not get employer contribution but many will get subsides. Many on the “Morning Joe “advised the congressman to write a bill, get Cosponsors and proceed through the normal parliamentary procedure, but that shouldn’t be part of a CR or a reason not to raise the debt limit.

I saw where two or three people in our local newspaper are blaming the Democrats and President Obama for the shutdown. Will our local newspaper be like the Houston Chronicle (they endorsed Ted Cruz) and only start telling its readers the truth when it’s too late, just so they won’t offend a potential subscriber?  I know those two or three people didn’t see the polls where 74% of Americans blame the GOP for the shutdown. And even if they did, they have a way of ignoring anything negative by calling it media bias. A newspaper shouldn’t “go along to get along.”

The Senate will likely pass a bipartisan bill to open the government and raise the debt limit this afternoon. They will send it over to the House where it will likely be passed with just enough Republicans. Look back people and ask, “was all this worth it and do we really want to go through this again in a few months?” It’s not out of your hands because one of 80 representatives who signed a letter calling for this shutdown way back in the summer was Blake Farenthold.

This Is What I Think

I don’t know what’s going on with the backroom negotiations but neither does the reporters, pundits, and in many cases the politicians.  It’s become an hourly update that cannot be verified.

This morning Joe Scarborough said that the White House is looking at the polls, thinking they have the upper hand so they are sticking it to the republicans. I don’t agree with that because it all goes back to the 2011 negotiations where many democrats thought that Joe Biden and President Obama gave up too much because of the upcoming election.  This time around, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is in charge of the negotiations.

The Republicans want the president and vice-president to get involved in the negotiations because of what they agreed to in the last 2011 fiscal cliff battle.  President Obama is not a good negotiator because he likes to establish long-term goals rather than squabble over short term fixes.  The GOP is always about the next election because they think they will have the upper hand in 2014.  That’s why going for the grand slam (defunding Obamacare) didn’t make a lick of sense.  This current battle is about a short-term fix because the GOP will never agree to raise taxes or increase spending.  They also know that Harry Reid is not a pushover, and he will use the nuclear option (51 votes) to pass a spending bill.  It’s not about letting the Republicans save face because a Senate bill cannot be weighed so heavily to get GOP votes that it makes it difficult for Nancy Pelosi to get all her Democrats to go along.

Joe Scarborough likes to live in the 90s, a time that he was in Congress but things have changed.  He continues to question the leadership of President Obama because he was not involved in the negotiations from the start.  That’s from his line of thinking.  President Obama submitted a budget and he made it clear that he would not negotiate to raise the debt limit.  That’s being involved in the negotiations from the start .  A good leader will use all the tools in the toolbox and will learn from past mistakes.  President Obama has learned that he cannot negotiate in good faith with a group of people that don’t like him and will use any trick in the book to remove him from office or make him a failure.  Present Obama is involved in the negotiations but he using Harry Reid as his proxy.

The cat is out of the bag, the current GOP tactic to shut down the government was thought of this past summer.  Repealing the Affordable Care Act several times was just a warm-up for the upcoming budget battles.  The goal was to overturn the results of the 2012 election.  There’s more to it than Obamacare, and it’s another step toward impeachment.  Louie Goehmer said that going into default is an impeachable offense.  The GOP also said bombing Syria without congressional authority is an impeachable offense. Those people don't know or care about the seriousness of those charges, and they can't do the math because all the House can do is charge the president, the Senate (54 Dems) has to convict.

 This week after being instrumental in shutting down the government, Senator Ted Cruz tried to rile up the veterans by telling them that President Obama does not care about them.  Sunday Chris Wallace asked Senator Manchin of West Virginia, if the administration was purposely closing down the memorial’s to make it hard on the veterans for political reasons. Senator Manchin said no president (Republican or Democrat) would ever stoop that low. Joe Manchin was too kind because he could’ve reminded Chris Wallace, who shut down the government in the first place.

It’s time for Harry Reid to play a little hard ball or these issues and tactics will resurface again in six weeks.  The battle to reopen the government and raise the debt limit for at least a year (to calm the fears and grow our economy), should be over the sequester limits and be neutral on Obamacare.  Republican senator Collins has a good plan but it needs a few tweaks.

 

What About the Rest of Us?

A sad and subdued Joe Scarborough said he looked over the GOP’s dismal numbers and had to admit that there are two parties within the Republican Party.  It was either that or he had to admit that the entire Republican brand was at rock bottom.  He used to dismiss the 30 or 40 wacko birds thinking that the elite still ran the party.  Joe would always invoke the names of Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, and Scott Walker as examples of good conservative governors. That’s all well and good, but the numbers inside the Wall Street/NBC told a different story.

It’s like hypertension or diabetes; you can only ignore it for so long.  The very thing the tea party went after went up in popularity.  Obamacare gained seven points, 38% now favor the program and 41% despise it; those numbers are just about even and that’s with the website problems.  The president is now at 47% approval and only 31% blame him for the shutdown.  The number that was a surprise me was the 52% that think that government should do more and the 50% that do not want Obamacare repealed.

Only Republicans and political junkies really care about the GOP infighting; the rest of the nation wants the government reopened and our debt limit increased.

Poll numbers are a snapshot in time and they will change but when you shut down the government, people search for the reasons why.  They found out that Obamacare will only affect about 15%, so that’s not worth a shutdown.  Then the GOP House tried to pass piecemeal legislation, showing that vital parts of the government needed to be reopened.  The final nail on the coffin was the debt deniers ,claiming that we would technically not be defaulting and if we did, it would not be a catastrophe.  Those people found out that the average American still listens to the treasury secretary and leading economists.  And in many cases, the national media stepped up to the plate and corrected the misleading statements. 

The House Republicans supposedly offered a clean six week debt limit extension (November 22) but won’t reopen the government without more spending cuts.  The government has already been closed two weeks and in that period it has been unable to collect some revenues.  There are still 400,000 people in government out of work and many are in critical jobs.  Consumer confidence is at an all- time low, so another budget fight during the holidays will not be good for business.  I hope Harry Reid and the president hold out for a one year clean debt limit bill, and insist on the government reopening.  The GOP pinned all their hopes on a freshman senator and his cockamamie idea and now they want something to save face.

The Democrats have yet to ask for anything, other than a clean CR and a debt limit increase with a promise to sit down at a conference to discuss various options to get our fiscal house in order.

The president and the Democrats have not won a thing because raising the debt limit benefits our economy and reopening the government does the same.  Politically, things are favorable for a  Dem takeover of the House of Representatives and maintaining the Senate but that was because of the incompetence of the GOP.

Some Things Will Never Change

I got a little upset this morning when Harold Ford JR. and Mika Brzezinski said that Paul Ryan’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal was a bipartisan approach to end the shutdown.  No it wasn’t, it’s the same budget proposal that lost the 2012 election for the GOP.  Paul Ryan might not have mentioned Obamacare, but he didn’t mention new revenues either.

Republicans and Democrats don’t change, as one is for privatizing and the other is for making government work.

John Boehner has heard from the Koch brothers and others about the consequences of default; his next strategy is to keep the government closed but he now wants to raise the debt limit for a short period of time.  Republicans cannot come to the table without having a hostage to bargain with.  Yes, Democrats have forced shutdowns in the past but we’ve never gotten this close to default.

I don’t think the tea party cares about the 28% approval rating the GOP has, in fact, they are probably making tee shirts with 28% written across the front and back.  They didn’t come to Washington to govern; they came to blow up the place and start anew.  These people are libertarians with a low regard for government, regulations, and taxes.  They’ll take Social Security, Medicare and VA benefits and rail about the government takeover.  Libertarians can’t win elections, unless they run under the Republican banner but now that they have, they are destroying the brand.

Democrats bring your chair little closer to your monitor so you can see plainly what the Republicans are up to.  Entitlement reform is privation in Republican speak.  Joe Scarborough said that reforms are needed in order to save these entitlements, but his way of saving will make it hard on those people who depend on them.  There’s no question that reform is needed but benefits do not have to be cut.  We could lift the caps and raise the contribution amount to 7% and make the program solvent for several years.  Don’t fall for the means testing approach.  When you mean test a social program, it makes a class warfare issue. We don’t have to raise the eligibility age on Medicare or Social Security because that’s all some people are looking forward to.  I am against President Obama’s wiliness to move on a Chained CPI because it would hurt the poor in outlining years.  Democrats can’t continue to give away the store without equal cuts in defense spending and insisting on tax increases or increasing the minimum wage.

 This is an ongoing battle and you have to be pretty naïve not to think that the subsidies in ACA won’t always be a target for Republicans. Remember Paul Ryan may look like the boy who lived next door, but he’s still a disciple of Ayn Rand. We should compromise but beware of the Trojan Horse.

           

Shutdown Hangover

With just nine days until we default on our debt for the very first time in our history, the media is trying to be the first to inform us as to the reason.  

The New York Times,Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s New York Times article also reports that the" David and Charles Koch, and their affiliated groups, threw some pretty big bucks around. Freedom Partners distributed $200 million to various “grassroots” anti-Obamacare groups. Meanwhile, the Americans for Prosperity plunked down $5.5 million for anti-Obamacare television ads. Freedom Partners also paid an additional $115 million to the egregiously misnamed Center to Protect Patient Rights. Meanwhile, the youthful and comparatively thrifty Generation Opportunity spent a scant $740 thousand on their creepy Uncle Sam ad. in hopes of scaring us away from Obamacare’s state health insurance exchanges.”

Last night, Lawrence O’Donnell had another theory.  He said that the GOP was not that dumb, and this is an effort to destroy the imperial presidency, which they started with Richard Nixon.  Senator Ted Cruz is being described as a Sarah Palin with a brain, so he used his talent and went around the country pledging to destroy Obamacare to the delight of the base.  Now, you have Republicans wanting to vote for a clean CR, but they are afraid of being exposed as being a RHINO and getting a challenger from the right.  The GOP does not see a clear path to the presidency anytime in the future, so the only thing they have left is to destroy President Obama and his agenda.  The reason their initial plan failed was that President Obama stood his ground, and did not negotiate with the hostage takers.  This left the tea party dumbfounded, so they came up with this “the president won’t negotiate” ploy to get sympathy for their effort.  According to latest polls, the GOP is getting a majority of the blame for the shutdown.

That was fairly heated but informative discussion about the shutdown on this morning’s episode of “Morning Joe.” The cast of characters included Carl Bernstein, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicole Wallace, Matt Lewis,Eugene Washington and Bill Kristol.  It became pretty evident that Bill Kristol does not like President Obama one bit, saying that he was the exact opposite of FDR.  Eugene Washington reminded Mr. Kristol, that the same GOP demonized FDR while he was trying to implement Social Security.  Bill Kristol shot back “ FDR was not at 45% during this time of his presidency.” Well, that’s because a lot more people were democrats back then. 

 Matt Lewis said that young evangelicals were no longer following the GOP because of their views on the social issues.  He also said that President Obama Hillary Clinton followed the philosophy of Noam Chomsky, who wrote a book (game palm) which preached hate and promoted ideas on how to demonize your opponent.  No one on the panel, mentioned that the GOP had Lee Atwater doing the same for them.

Carl Bernstein kept Nicole Wallace in check throughout the segment by refusing to let her say that Obamacare was a government-run health care system.  Joe Scarborough tried to make the best use of Mika running into some Democrats who did not like Obamacare.  She had to explain that the people she talked with were angry with Congress, the shutdown, and Obamacare was just thrown in with it.

We will be the losers if our country defaults or even appears to be defaulting.  My IRA will lose value and our Social Security checks might be delayed but that’s minor compared to people who would lose their jobs.  This country will lose any recovery gains that we have been making..  A default is a lot more than 535 winners and losers.

For most of us....it's not a game

In the video Rand Paul talks about a winning strategy but what's he winning? The country is losing $300 million for every day the government is shut down.I saw Rand Paul give that GOP messageIn of the day on CNN. He said that the administration only had four people guarding the embassy in Benghazi but they had 5 park rangers keeping the vets from visiting the WWII memorial.  I heard that talking point being used several more times during the day by representatives and Fox News hosts.

I saw our own representative Blake Farenthold fall for Chis Hayes's  trap. Chris asked Rep. Farenhold if he wanted to defund Obamacare. Farenthold said that he wanted fairness and a delay of the individual mandate ,just like the president gave to small businesses. Chris Hayes said that the delay would cause Obamacare to fail and the GOP knew that.. Bam, that's when Mr. Farenthold forgot the talking points and admitted that he wanted to defund Obamacare. Back in August of this year,Rep. Blake Farenthold joined 79 fellow Republicans by signing a letter to John Boehner urging him to use defunding Obamacare as a strategy to pass the CR. The representative knew that he had been had and his facial expressions said it all. Rep. Blake Farenthold is not a bright fellow but the straight-line party Republicans will try to send him back to Washington year after year and then they wonder why our government is in a mess.

Fox News are doing their best to help the Republicans by referring to the shutdown as a slim down or a slowdown.  Right wing talk show hosts and Fox News hosts are downplaying the effects of the shutdown. Millionaires will never feel the effects of the shutdown.

Republicans are trying to deflect blame because the Senate won't pass their piecemeal approach. The only reason Republicans added funding NIH to their piecemeal legislation,was that there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about 30 children being denied cancer treatment. 

The GOP now wants now wants a lifeline to save face. Several Republican have said the president has to give the GOP something and they go on to list a laundry list of goodies but they don't want to give anything in return. Keeping government open is what congress is supposed to do. 

I heard that John Boehner might consider passing a clean bill to raise the debt limit to keep the country from defaulting but insist that the government remain shutdown until he gets a grand bargain.

This is Not Rocket Science

If I can understand it ,then it's not rocket science.

A continuing resolution (CR) is a temporary spending bill (two to three months), and it shouldn't ever be mistaken for an annual budget. Why would major policy issues be attached to a short term device meant to keep the government running? The current CR keeps spending levels close to that of the GOP's budget request.  As Harry Reid said last night,"the Republicans don't know when to say yes."

The debt ceiling is just a promissory note that states that Congress will pay the debts they incurred through appropriations. It is possible to negotiate concessions, but both parties must know that at the end of the day; the debt ceiling will be raised   Denmark is the only other country that has a debt ceiling. I don't think we need another government duplication, but if we insist on keeping it, then we should attach it to a budget resolution. Holding the debt ceiling hostage is a bad precedent for future presidents. If the Republicans ever regained  the presidency, I don't believe they would like a lone Democrat to hold up the debt ceiling, just to destroy the economy for the current administration.

Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman said, " we are not going to be disrespected, We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."There in lies the problem. In the budget negotiations of 2011, the GOP rolled over Pres. Obama and I remember John Boehner saying, "I got 90% of what I wanted."Republican expected the president to blink again but Obama learned his lesson, and he's standing his ground. Democrats are united and then will not fall for the gimmicks that the House is trying to pass. Joe Scarborough asked, "why won't Democrats allow funding for the VA, national parks, and NIH" and former White House Sec., Robert Gibbs said," all the GOP needs to do is pass a clean CR, and everything  will be funded. "

Joe Scarborough was pretty subdued today, but it may be because of what happened yesterday on MSNBC. It's common knowledge that MSNBC leans to the left,but Yesterday, Joe Scarborough had on Bill Kristol, and together they team up to go after Carl Bernstein. Carl did not stay for the second segment. Twitter exploded with liberal rants including Alex Baldwin. A guest with a different perspective is a premium but  there is very little difference between Bill Kristol and Glenn Beck.

A while ago, liberals let NBC know that they didn't appreciate Chuck Todd saying that it was not his job to stop politicians from distorting the facts about Obamacare. This morning Chuck Todd interrupted and corrected, Tea Party representative Tom Cotton of Arkansas when he tried to distort the facts about Obamacare. I think it's the media's job to correct politicians, no matter what party they are affiliated with. Not that many Republicans go on MSNBC, but I suspect that whatever that number was, it will dwindle to near zero.

Now What?

The pundits were quick to point out that the Republicans had lost the shutdown battle last night, but did they? Those tea party members will be hailed as heroes in their districts,so the only losers are the 800,000 federal employees who will be furloughed.Some will say "well those are just some lazy bureaucrats" and that's okay until you need them to sign you up for Social Security or other government services.RepublicanCongresswoman,Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee was bragging about the shutdown this morning. She said we will see how we can get by with less government. Tell that to the families of the furloughed federal employees. 

Joe Scarborough came in a little grumpy this morning because he knew he had to face people who did not agree with what the Republicans did last night.The feisty Joe Scarborough, got upset when his cohost Mika Brezinski told him that the Republicans we're scared that once people started signing up for the exchanges,they would like and repeal would no longer be an option. Joe disputed that assumption saying that Republicans were united in thinking that this health care plan would bankrupt our country.

After listening to all the reasons Republicans gave for not liking Obamacare; I came to the conclusion that they think this is just another welfare program.A whopping 95% of Republicans do not like Obamacare,so it's reasonable to assume that one of the  major reasons they oppose it coincides with their dislike of President Obama. The Tea Party does not like government (even thou many are on Social Security and Medicare),so a shutdown is a moral victory to them.

They propose delaying the implementation of the law for year but that's just another way of trying to destroy the healthcare law. they keep saying that the president made concessions for big business but that's not true. Well  over 95% of big businesses provide healthcare for their employees. The small business delay  is about 4% of the of the law. The individual mandate is a major piece of the Affordable Care Act because if this is going to work, a lot of young healthy people need to sign up to offset the cost of those people signing up with pre-existing conditions.

When all other efforts failed ,the House Republicans send the Senate a bill to setup a conference to settle the differences. That was funny because there was only about 20 minutes on the clock; besides they turned down the Democrats 18 times when they suggested a conference months ago. Republicans have never figured out that you don't get major concessions in a 45 to 75 day bill meant to keep the government open.

CNN tried to make a big deal out out of the fact that  President Obama was not negotiating with John Boehner . They said the president was golfing this weekend and Harry Reid sent the senate home. What would the president get in a negotiation? The GOP is offering to keep the government open if he meets their demands; never mind the fact that it's congresses job to keep the government open.

So many are longing for the days of budget deals like the ones between Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan but that's before the Tea Party and 24/7 television. Last night John Boehner mocked the president on the House floor.That's unheard of, because telephone calls between the speaker and the president are usually kept private. 

The best outcome would be to pass a clean 75 day day spending bill and an agreement to raise the debt limit. They could then go to conferance and hash out a one year budget. They could have a separate committee to work out the flaws in the Affordable Care Act. 

It's no longer an if

There's no longer question whether they will be a shut down ,the question now is for how long.We're at a point where the Republicans think that they are the reasonable ones by compromising.It's as if I went to the Ford dealership and offered them $5000 for a brand-new pick up, but they just smile and go on about their business. I then go back there and offer them $6000 and then complain because they don't want to compromise. Defunding or delaying Obamacare will never be part of any negotiating.

I have to give Paul Krugman a lot of credit for turning to his left looking at Bill Kristol and telling him that he was guilty of having policy ignorance. The opponents of the healthcare law are just throwing things against the wall, hoping something will stick. The truth is no one knows if the health care law will be successful or a failure.  We won't know the success or failure of the law, until five years from now. There will be corrections along the way, as for any piece of legislation. The health care law is not solely responsible for the part-time employment across the nation. I do get a chuckle when I hear Republicans standing up the unions and the poor. 

This morning Nicole Wallace got all upset because President Obama is not negotiating with the House Republicans. Why should he give in to their temper tantrums; it sets a bad precedence. Like the Ford dealership in my example above; the president is holding all the cards on Obamacare. It will take 67 senatorial votes to override a presidential veto. The GOP can call it a slow down, or they can blame the democrats for the shutdown but they have no control over that. They can show up in a small group (20 representatives) and challenge the senators to take up their legislation but people see it what it is.;brinkmanship.

Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, Mike Lee are reading from the same playbook. When the three are asked a question that doesn't support their talking points, they will talk over the interviewer and repeat their bullet points and act as though they were never asked the difficult question. Their rhetoric will always include, a job killing law that will destroy the economy and in some cases, kill people.

If this health care is successful,the law's default name will change to something else. I bet if the law were named" The Affordable Marketplace  Act" the pushback wouldn't be as much as it is and the polls would be favorable. 

 Senator Tim Kaine, gave Fox News Sunday's, Chris Wallace a taste of his own medicine by using a similar tactic. He irritated the FOX News host by continuing to say that a shutdown was not the answer. I laughed when Chris Wallace showed Tim a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield, saying that they were going to deny services to one customer because of Obamacare. The senator question the reasoning because we've all heard of insurance companies denying services ,even before Obamacare was in existence.

This shutdown will hurt some people because an appropriation bill has not been passed. Social Security checks will still go out and Medicare services will continue but those applying for services might be delayed because of the furloughs that will take place. This shutdown pales in comparison to a shutdown over increasing the debt limit. The latter has  economic worldwide implications.

The Republicans are complaining because Pres. Obama talks to Putin, Syria, and Iran but he won't talk to them. First of all, they should be ecstatic that we are talking ,instead of planning another war.  The right seems to be irritated and very skeptical even though the negotiations  are going along pretty well. One FOX News pundit even said the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu,will meet with Obama today and warn him about negotiating. Huh? Israel does not dictate American foreign policy.

I hope I'm wrong and John Boehner will use to 200 Democrats to pass a clean CR bill to avoid a shutdown.