The Tea Party Republicans are hell-bent on shutting down the government again.
President Obama had harsh words for them over trying to limit the Debt Ceiling once again, calling their actions "extortion" of a sitting President.
Via Time
“You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt ceiling being used to extort a president or a — a governing party,” Obama told the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs.
Obama said his dispute with House Republicans over a budget for the federal government has also entered uncharted territory, with their demand to link a continuing resolution to postponing the unpopular healthcare law.
“What we now have is a ideological fight that’s been mounted in the House of Representatives that says, we’re not going to pass a budget and we will threaten a government shutdown unless we repeal the Affordable Care Act,” Obama said. “We have not seen this in the past, that a budget is contingent on us eliminating a program that was voted on, passed by both chambers of Congress, ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, is two weeks from being fully implemented and that helps 30 million people finally get health care coverage — we’ve never seen that become the issue around a budget battle.”
Congress continues their foolish quest to "Repeal Obamacare." This is a Don Quixote-like quest they say is mandated by the voters who sent them to Washington. Unfortunately, those voters don't realize that A) It's never going to happen because the ACA is the law of the land, and B) Members of their own party in the Senate think closing down the government (again) is moronic and a ridiculous waste of time.
Speaker of the House John Boehner is being squeezed between a bunch of rock-heads and a hard place. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called the Tea Party troublemakers "anarchists."
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed Wednesday to push ahead with a bill to defund Obamacare or shut down the government -- an effort that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) panned as an "absurd" ploy inspired by tea party "anarchists."
With Congress facing a Sept. 30 deadline to figure out how to keep paying for the federal government, Boehner said in a Capitol Hill news conference that defunding President Barack Obama's health care reform was a key part of that effort.
"We're going to continue to do everything we can to repeal the president's failed health care law," Boehner said. "This week, the House will pass the CR [continuing resolution] that locks the sequester savings in and defunds Obamacare."
Many mainstream Republicans have repeatedly slammed such an approach as "stupid," and Boehner himself has tried to avoid linking Obamacare to a potential government shutdown.
Congress already has popularity lower than head lice and traffic jams, so why not prove again how stupid they are by voting against the popular Obamacare plan for the 40th - or is it 41st? - Nope 42nd - time?
These are the folks who wasted the past year screaming "Benghazi!!!!" and raking Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice over hot burning coals. Did they "get" Hillary and ruin her chances for a Presidential run? Of course not - Hillary remains as popular as ever. What about Susan Rice? While the GOP kept her from being Ambassador to the UN, they couldn't stop Obama from appointing her as his National Security Adviser, so the joke was on the Tea Party. I'm sure more than a few rather empty heads exploded.
Next, they investigated the IRS, which was supposedly "ordered" by Obama to target the Tea Party groups on their tax-exempt status, but when the dust settled, it turned out that liberal groups got the exact same questionnaires and letters.
So each "BIG" investigation reached a dead end. Feeling frustrated, the usual suspects took up the rallying cries of the anti-Obama Libertarians against the NSA thanks to Edward Snowden's leaks. While emoprog Lefties also jumped on the bandwagon - causing strange bedfellows such as Alan Grayson and Sarah Palin (!), all the nerds on MSNBC haven't managed to drag centrist Democrats along with them. In fact, the only thing to come out of the Snowdenfest is that both far-Left and far-Right are praising Vladimir Putin and giving him credit for diplomacy in Syria over our own peace-loving, Nobel-winning President. This wasn't good for the Dems who need to stay cohesive in the 2014 elections, but especially not good for the Tea Party who readily admit they would rather be on the side of a known ex-KGB dictator than the first African-American President.
History is going to judge the Tea Party in the context that they themselves won't recognize - that right now things are not on the edge of the economic apocalypse they keep predicting. The Stock Market is higher than ever under the Obama Administration, and the Deficit is shrinking. So Obama really fails at being a scary "Socialist." All the draconian measures the Republicans insist are "necessary" merely slow down the economy, and help no one. Economists are not going to leave that out of future studies and books, so the GOP is killing its own legacy.
And this Congress fails America on basic moral grounds as well. This week there was a horrible shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. by still another mentally ill man who was able to procure weapons and go onto a military base. In spite of the fact that he was known to "hear voices" and had brushes with gun violence in the past, all the screening and background checks failed. 14 people are dead, including the shooter. Flags are flying at half-mast. But this Congress and the Republican Party in general is unlikely to pass any new gun laws. Yeah, fiddle-dee-dee. What's another mass murder to this Congress?
The one bill they might pass - the Farm Bill - cuts $40 billion from the Food Stamp Program - an outrage that has the Obama Admin threatening to Veto the entire mess (Reuters).
In a statement, the White House said lawmakers should instead cut farm and crop insurance subsidies rather than separate millions of people from "one of our nation's strongest defenses against hunger and poverty."
"These cuts would affect a broad array of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, including working families with children, senior citizens, veterans, and adults who are still looking for work," the White House said.
It was the second time since June that the White House has threatened to veto large cuts in food stamps, the main federal program against hunger.
With Republicans holding a 33-seat advantage in the House, Democrats need to persuade around 20 Republicans to join them to kill the bill. Conversely, Republicans need a party-line vote to prevail. They did that on July 11 roll call to single out food stamps for cuts.
UPDATE: They did it - the heartless GOP Congress cut the Food Stamp Program:
From Washington Post:
Late Thursday, the House of Representatives voted, 217-210, to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly (and popularly) known as food stamps, by $39 billion over the next 10 years, a 5 percent cut relative to current law.
Hello, Legacy, can we talk about hungry children? Can we talk about malnourished families? Meanwhile fat-cat Congressmen like Phil Gingrey (R-GA)and Sean Duffy (R-WI) have the nerve to complain that they don't make enough money. Apparently they don't realize that a salary of $174,000 is many, many times the $15-20,000 a year from minimum wage that many struggle to live on in this country. The disconnect is sad and tragic and infuriating on so many levels.
This Congress will go down in history as the absolute most do-nothing, whiny, incompetent, heartless, and depressing of all time. And stupid.
What a good post. You did a good job. I always enjoy reading your post. EDIT: I wish there was someway you could do away with the requirement of copying the two words to post. For some reason I almost always can't read the words and this makes it hard for me to post. I added the edit when my attempt to just post the above was denied. Hopefully I will be able to post this time.
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