By Cliff Montgomery – Oct. 8th, 2013
How to explain the current government shutdown? Perhaps we might conduct a thought experiment…
Suppose for a moment, dear reader, that you and I run a small business along with a few other well-placedindividuals. We don’t actually own the business, but we run its day-to-day activities on behalf of the owners…
Now suppose there is an executive vote on some point of business, and though I am strongly opposed to theproposal, I lose that vote. The proposal is passed and becomes an established rule of our business operations.
But at the 11th hour, I employ some action which keeps anyone else from accessing business funds – whetherthose people be other executives or the actual business owners.
I then tell the owners of the business that I will only return what belongs to them when they run the companyon my terms…
If you were one of the company’s owners – or even one of its business representatives – you wouldn’t call me‘passionate’ or say I was a ‘tough negotiator’. You’d call my little display an act of both theft and extortion.
Theft, because I won’t let the actual owners of these funds access the money that rightfully belongs to them -and extortion, because I will continue to hurt and deprive the owners until they give in to my demands.
This is exactly what Republican extremists in the U.S. House are doing with their little government shutdown.They are engaging in an act of theft, because they refuse to let the actual owners of government funds -American taxpayers – access the money that rightfully belongs to them, and extortion, because the extremistswill continue to hurt and deprive American taxpayers until they give in to the extremists’ demands.
That may be a fine way to run a mafia family, but it’s no way to run a democracy.
Even House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) could see the idiocy of such a tactic. At least, he saw it last year.
“It’s pretty clear that the president was re-elected,” Boehner told newswoman Diane Sawyer at the time.“Obamacare is the law of the land. If we were to put Obamacare into the CR [Continuing Resolution] and sendit over to the Senate, we were risking shutting down the government. That is not our goal,” he declared.
But that was then. The House GOP seems to have a new way of doing things these days.
“What have House Republicans managed to accomplish in a week of government shutdown?” asked aWashington Post opinion piece published yesterday.
“Damage the livelihood of millions of Americans? Check. Government secretaries, food-truck operators,cleaners who work in motels near national parks: They’re all hurting,” continued the newspaper.
“Interfere with key government operations? Check,” stated the Post, which pointed out that “the NationalTransportation Safety Board can’t investigate an accident last weekend on [the D.C.] Metro’s Red Line thatclaimed the life of a worker.”
Such matters “could make future accidents more likely,” the Post stated.
Might the shutdown “rattle the markets, slow an economy in recovery, interrupt potentially lifesaving researchat the National Institutes of Health? Check, check and check,” continued the paper.
“At some point, Mr. Obama and the Democrats will have to throw the [House] speaker a lifeline. […] Butthrowing a lifeline is pointless until the victim realizes he may be drowning,” pointed out the Post.
“It’s not clear the Republicans have reached that point. The danger is they will take the country down withthem,” the Post added.
