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| senate (Photo credit: Raela 9) |
At a certain age, kids will throw tantrums in an
effort to get attention or get their way. They rant, scream, roll around the
floor, and throw and break things. The absolute worst thing you can do in these
situations is give in to their demands. It’s not even a good idea to pay too
much attention to them. This validates tantrums as a way to get what you want.
The just-ended federal government shutdown is a case
of an adult temper tantrum. Some 40 Republican members of the House of
Representatives, determined to get rid of a law they don’t like, the Affordable
Care Act (ACA) – which just happened to be passed by both House and Senate in
2010, browbeat and coerced their fellow Republicans into playing a game of
brinksmanship that brought the government to a virtual standstill for nearly three
weeks. The Senate passed it by a vote of 60-39 in 2009, and the House signed on
in 2010 with a vote of 219-212.
Like a stubborn two-year-old, they knew going in
that they had no chance of success, but they did it anyway. Like the child who
smashes his toys, they didn’t seem to give a damn about the consequences of
their temperamental outburst. So it cost the country from $23 to $24 billion in
lost GDP, so what? National parks lost $450,000 a day in lost receipts, and
there was $2.4 billion in lost travel spending? Those are just the national
impacts. What about local impacts? Well, in Northern Virginia, many dry
cleaning establishment workers had to be laid off in communities where the
majority of residents were furloughed government workers for whom dry cleaning
was a luxury that had to be foregone for the duration of the shutdown. What did
they care? Apparently, they either didn’t care, or were too ignorant to be able
to foresee the consequences. Either answer is frightening. Voters elected these
wackos to represent their interests in Washington. In the wake of this most
recent debacle, one is left wondering just what interests such nimrods actually
represent.
As House Democrat Nancy Pelosi said, “they live in a
data-free zone,” referring to their inability to digest the devastating
economic impact of their insane political posturing. What is even more disconcerting
is that this little knot of malcontents constitute less than ten percent of the
House of Representatives total 435 voting members, yet they were able to coerce
their fellow Republicans, apparently fearful of the revenge of the lunatic
fringe, into going along with them as they played chicken with a
Democratic-controlled Senate and a President who’d made it clear from the start
that he would not negotiate with those taking the country hostage.
Finally, sanity prevailed, and Republicans in the Senate
(or at least enough of them) decided that enough was enough, and they voted on
a bill to raise the debt limit and reopen the government. House Speaker Boehner
finally found his manhood and allowed a House vote on the Senate bill, and that
was that. Or, was it? In January, we have the potential to have to go through
this mess again, because these infantile idiots don’t seem capable of learning
from experience, and are likely to give it another go.
You see, they didn’t get their way, but they did get
attention. Mainstream media quoted their inane babblings incessantly, and the
right-wing tabloids held them out as heroes. Ted Cruz, the junior senator from
Texas (where, by the way, where six of the tantrum throwers come from) led other
ultra-conservative politicians in a presidential poll conducted by a right-wing
group that was holding a meeting in Washington during the shutdown. Even though
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has vowed that there will be no more
Republican-led shutdowns in order to defund the ACA, Boehner was unable to
exert leadership over these rebels in the House, and one has to wonder if they
have any sense of respect left for their so-called leadership.
They certainly have a unique take on reality. They
blame the president and the Democrats, for instance, for the shutdown. Their
reasoning goes something like this: we, a tiny minority of the whole body, want
something, and if you don’t let us have our way, we’ll bring the whole thing
crashing down. The president and Senate majority leader Harry Reid refused to
be bullied or intimidated; the nuts corralled their fellow Republicans into
cowering for three weeks, and – guess what – it’s the fault of those who
refused to be bullied that we did what we did. It’s not our fault. Kind of like
the guy who killed his parents saying the court should be lenient with him
since he’s an orphan.
If you’re fan of the circus, keep an eye on
Washington in the coming months. I have a sinking feeling that the show’s not
over yet, and their next act will be to ‘send in the clowns.’
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