Obama's Shutdown

 As Americans anxiously await to hear if the House and the Senate can come to an accord on the budget, or face  the shutting down of the government, Barack Obama and his family preapre to leave town for a previously planned family getaway.  Someone should have warned Mr. Obama that being POTUS requires more intense work than that of community organizer or a Senator who is better known for voting "Present."  One wonders, "Does Obama care if the government shuts down?" 


Utah's Republican, Sen. Mike Lee  is quoted as saying that President Obama's inability to get a budget passed last year may have been "deliberate."  Has the liberal media questioned why, if the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress, they were unable to come to an agreement and to approve a budget in 2010? According to Senator Lee,  "It was either irresponsible on one hand or deliberate and malicious on the other with intention to bring about a sequence of events that would culminate inevitably in a government shutdown." Speaking on the Senate floor today, Senator Lee was quite serious.


Lee was not the only person to suspect that the government shutdown could have been preplanned.  Speaking on FOX News, radio talk show host, Chris Plante, questioned how former DNC Chairman Howard Dean could possibly have been able to predict weeks ago that the Republicans would get the blame  for a shutdown.  The answer according to Plante is simple --Dean  knew that  a showdown was coming, and he also knew that the media would be on the side of the Democrats because they are working together.  How else could Dean have stated that he knew who would win?  Plante called the media, "the Bucket Brigade, whose job it is to carry the water for the Democrats."  An apt description and a devious  ploy which does not come as a big surprise. 


The media is ready and very willing, to blame the GOP for the impasse. We believe that in doing so they are underestimating the American public's intelligence and sophistication.  There are some who are willing to be spoon fed by the  news media, but there are entirely too many others who will no longer accept the media bias as gospel.  Both the Democrats and the media persist in repeating the same tired mantra:  "The Tea Party controls the Republicans."  "The Tea Party is whispering in the ear of Republicans."  The Tea Party does not need to whisper in any one's ear.  The Tea Party has a voice of its own and speaks out in the most effective way possible -- at the polls.


The truth of the matter is that in spite of Obama's fear tactics and threats to veto any attempt to keep the American military funded, the government doesn't really "shut down" during a shutdown.  The rules for who works and who doesn't date back to the early 1980s and haven't been significantly modified since.  The Obama administration hasn't issued new guidance.


The air traffic control system, food inspection, Medicare, veterans' health care and many other essential government programs would run as usual. The Social Security Administration would not only send out benefits but would continue to take applications. The Postal Service, which is self-funded, would keep delivering the mail. Federal courts would remain open.


Once again during these negotiations, what has become most apparent to Americans is Barack Hussein's Obama inability to lead.  He threatens to veto any effort on the part of Republicans to continue paying the U.S. Military during a new government shutdown, and the media report it without question.  In case Mr. Obama has forgotten, our country is engaged in three wars in three different countries, the last of which is HIS war in Libya.  The arrogance of the man to threaten to withhold payment to the very people he has sent to put their lives in harm's way!  The insensitivity of the man to play political games with the lives of military families!


There may be a silver lining in this dark cloud that hangs over our country.  If Obama's government withholds payment for all who would be affected by the government coming to a standstill, two important things could take place.  The American people could very well realize how smoothly the government functions without all the bureaucracy and waste of money, and like it.  The Democrats' ploy to turn the voters against Republicans and the members of the Tea Party could backfire and blow up in their face. 


Everyone knows that the Democrats and the White House rejected the Republican's stopgap plan to keep the government going for another week while extending the military's pay for the rest of the fiscal year.  Using the excuse that the two riders contained in the measure were unacceptable, they turned their backs on the GOP offers.  The riders include not funding abortions in the D.C. area and keeping the terrorists detained at Gitmo without coming on American soil.  These are not new demands.  These are provisions that were in place until they were changed by the Obama administration.  If they can be called anything, the word is reversals -- and welcome reversals they would be.


In the end, the stalemate, and the refusal to reach a compromise boils down to defending Obama's health care bill.  Democrats will go to great lengths to protect Barack Obama's legacy - socialized medicine for Americans - at all costs. That includes shutting down the government while placing the blame on Republicans and the Tea Party. Their reluctance to come to an agreement with the GOP is strictly political. In spite of our country facing an astronomical deficit, they are willing, for purely political reasons, to risk bringing the government to a standstill, letting women and children go without money for groceries and bills, furlough federal employees, and close national parks.


These are the same Democrats, Reid, Pelosi, Hoyer, et al. who rammed Obamacare down our collective throats and who hid an outrageous amount of expenditures in it. If Senate Democrats are really serious about cutting down on wasteful expenses and getting the economy back on track, they would realize that the path to fiscal health begins with the repeal of Obamacare.



twosisters_ftr@yahoo.com  

SUNDAY REFLECTIONS

As the newly elected Senators and Representatives prepare to be seated and sworn in, everyone is speculating on what the mixture of a GOP dominated House, a Democrat Senate and President. will do for the country.  How will it affect the economic crisis?  For weeks now commentators and pundits have been making predictions.  The GOP has announced that the first order of business will be to repeal Obamacare.  Some liberals take offense to the term Obamacare and try to push through the more palatable "health care reform" terminology.  Conservatives warn the Congress not to "roll over" for Obama.  Democrats admonish that Obama won't go begging to the GOP.  In the meantime the president enjoys his  $1.5 million Hawaiian Christmas while signing bill and making objectionable appointments without consulting the Senate as is his wont. 

Others such as Rep. Issa indicate that they are going after the corruption in the Obama Administration.  The new Speaker of the House to be, John Boehmer plans an Obamacare repeal vote before the State of the Union address.  All of us know that the GOP House must still contend with a Democrat held Senate and Obama's veto power.  It's going to be an interesting beginning to the new year.

As we scoured the news reports for facts, and researched for information to write our blog, we did so with the idea of what advice we'd give the GOP.  Sister Two has a new Republican Senator in Mark Kirk.  Sister One unfortunately lives in a Democratic stronghold, but within the Corpus Christi metropolitan area, and they made history on November 2, and defeated Representative Solomon Ortiz and replaced him with Republican Blake Farenholdt.  We are anxious to see what the GOP will do.  Can they succeed?

Armed with several ideas, and even more false starts,  we came across Sunday Reflections in the Washington Examiner, and by golly, here was Professor Reynolds, eloquently expressing what we would have said, except he said it much better.  So with gratitude to him and the Washington Examiner, we bring you an article  that we hope all the GOP in Congress will read.   
Sunday Reflections
Modest proposals to help the new Congress survive and America to thrive


By: Glenn Harlan Reynolds
OpEd Contributor
Washington Examiner


With the new Congress being sworn in this week, everyone is full of advice. 


Well, I'm no exception.


The first advice comes from Han Solo in the debut "Star Wars" film: "Don't get cocky." Republicans won big in the last election, but, if they think that constitutes an excuse to slip back into their old ways, circa 2004 to 2006, then they are doomed -- not just as individual politicians, but quite possibly as a party. The public's patience is quite limited, and is likely to stay so for the foreseeable future.


Second, remember that fortune favors the bold. It's true that ordinarily in politics, most progress occurs at the margins. But it's also true that these are not ordinary times. Big money-saving and government-shrinking proposals in the House, even if they're shot down by the Democrat-controlled Senate, will nonetheless establish a tone.

 They're trying to hide it, but the Inside-the-Beltway permanent-government political class is currently scared. Keep them that way, while showing the public at large that you're serious.


Third, look beyond Congress. There's a simmering mood in favor of constitutional reform across the country. Proposals such as Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett's "Repeal Amendment" -- in which overweening federal laws can be repealed by a supermajority of state legislatures -- are already floating around and generating sufficient support to require pushback from the New York Times.


Nineties-era ideas like the Balanced Budget Amendment and federal term limits for Congress are also popular again. And there's even interest in calling a federal Constitutional Convention. No doubt other ideas will appear. Give them a fair hearing in Congress. Not only is this worth doing on its own, but it will help keep the Washington-insider crowd off-balance.


Fourth, ignore the press. The establishment media still have their power, but they've never been weaker, and they're perceived by an ever-greater percentage of Americans as simply an arm of the political-class Democratic Party. If you pay attention, they have power over you. If you do what you think is right, they don't.


Fifth, go after the infrastructure of the government-backed Left. Back in 2002, I wrote that Republicans should be repealing the awful Digital Millennium Copyright Act: By doing so, they'd not only build up goodwill among college-age downloaders and libertarian tech-types, but they'd also harm the entertainment-industrial complex that is a huge source of money and media power for Democrats.


Seldom are politicians presented with the opportunity to do something simultaneously so inherently right, politically popular and strategically advantageous. Naturally, the congressional Republicans of that era blew it.


They just couldn't bring themselves to go after Big Business, even if it was hostile Big Business. That opportunity is still there. And don't pass up similar opportunities, either. There are a lot of them out there.


Sixth -- and this may be the hardest of all -- lead by example. Democrats have been hurt by, for instance, campaigning against Americans' big carbon footprints while living in enormous mansions and flying in private jets. Don't follow in their footsteps.


Saying no to the perks of office is hard, but Americans, who might tolerate hypocrisy when things are going well, are pretty sick of it now. Act like public servants, not members of an entitled aristocracy, no matter how great the temptations are to act otherwise. And they are great indeed.


Finally, and most importantly, don't forget that these are serious times. In the 1990s, America was able to fool itself into believing that we had reached the end of history, that the tough decisions were mostly behind us, and that progress and prosperity were mostly inevitable.


We know better now. The country is on the verge of bankruptcy, the federal government is at a low point in terms of popular legitimacy, and not just Congress, but the entire political class, is on probation.


"Don't blow it" is fairly unspecific advice, but it's important here. Don't be distracted by the many, many things that seem important in Washington but that don't really matter.


This last advice is probably the most important. We live in perilous times, and they demand a self-discipline and seriousness of purpose that has been missing from those who have governed us in recent years.


Rise to the occasion on the big things, and the little ones will take care of themselves. Drop the ball on the big things, and it won't matter how tactically clever your political position is.


So, yeah, don't blow it.

Examiner Sunday Reflections contributor Glenn Harlan Reynolds is founder and editor of Instapundit.com, and a University of Tennessee law professor.