We can weather the storm for now
The deadlock in Congress that played out on Monday resulted in 800,000 federal workers being furloughed as of midnight.
The ostensible cause of the government shutdown is the insistence by a small number of House Republicans that any continuing resolution – which would allow the government to continue to borrow money – be tied to legislation that would defund or delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
It’s worth noting that not all Republicans are to blame, despite what many in the Democratic party would have you think.
In fact, the roster of Republicans who have argued against this action includes Mitt Romney, John McCain and Judd Gregg, among other party elders. They are the voices of reason in the current GOP.
But reason carries little meaning for the irrational, so let’s call those who are driving the shutdown what they are: The party’s fringe element, motivated by an apparent pathological obsession with overturning the ACA.
And now the inmates have taken over the House, a testament to the absence of leadership from Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who have let the extremists lead because Congress passed an imperfect bill in 2010.
Fortunately, the country can weather the inconvenience of a shutdown for a couple of weeks, but mark Oct. 17 on your calendar. That’s the date on which the government would start to default on its obligations and the country could begin a fiscal meltdown that would make the 2008 financial crisis seem like the good old days. Social Security checks wouldn’t go out, Treasury bills – considered the safest of investments – wouldn’t be redeemed by the government and markets could be thrown into turmoil.
We doubt it will get to that point, but if it does, we’ll be in uncharted economic waters.
This would be a good time for moderate Republicans to exercise some control over their caucus and for those extremists who haven’t yet done so to come to terms with the fact that Obamacare is law. They should run against it in the next campaign if they despise it that much, but holding the government hostage over it now is the stuff of mad men.