11 October 2013

Government Shutdown

by David St. Hilaire

Government Shutdown Our country is going through a very...shall we say....interesting time. Apparently the government is "shutdown".  But who can tell? I definitely haven't noticed anything. We're still getting the mail, the troops are still in the field, and our Congressmen are still getting their paychecks.  Oh right, but all the National Parks are shut down, 80 year old WWII veterans were arrested for trying to visit their own monument, and a bunch of .gov websites are shut down (because we all know how terribly expensive it is to keep a website running).  Probably the biggest effect of the shutdown is the furloughing of 800,000 "non-essential" government workers (Good grief, we have that many non-essential government employees? Talk about big government...).  In my opinion, it seems wrong to shut down our parks and monuments but still pay Congress and the President.

So, whose fault is all of this?  Obama is blaming Congress -- specifically the Republicans in Congress.  The front page of whitehouse.gov says, "Because Congress did not fulfill its responsibility to pass a budget, much of the federal government is shut down."  The GOP is blaming Obama, Harry Reid and company.  However, the House is passing bill after bill to fund the government, giving in to the Dems on many issues, but the Democrat-controlled Senate won't budge, or so it seems.  How 'bout a little compromise here, guys?  Anyone?  And I'm not just talking to the Democrats.  Both sides need to come together and work something out. 

In the words of Dr. Kessler, according to the liberal media, "the sky is falling" and its all the GOP's fault.  Since the media always tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I guess it must be true.  Seriously though, as much as I hate the word, Congress (both parties) has to make some serious compromises, or nothing is ever going to get done.  Maybe the Boehner and the GOP need to allow the debt ceiling to be raised (yet again), and maybe Obama, Reid and the Dems should consider delaying the funding of Obamacare.  Just a thought.  What do you think?  Leave a comment below.

David St. Hilaire is the Vice-Chairman of the Benedictine College Republicans
Read his blog here: Patriot on the Plains

2 comments:

  1. I'm not sure how much I agree to the extent of more employees = big government. Honestly, my personal favorite Ronald Reagan increased government employees. Now, I'm doing more research into it, but I believe he actually reduced the number of Federal regulations. So, what's big government? More employees, or more red-tape rules from those employees? I think more employees simply shows the increasing numbers of our citizens and the capacity of the government to manage it. The rules, though, might be the real problem.

    Also, when it came to this issue a few years ago, Boehner was prepared to make a good, and in my opinion, respectable deal with the White House and Senate. Unfortunately, many Tea Party Republicans absolutely killed any chance of that, and the compromise was pushed until much later. Thankfully, some level heads prevailed, and I believe an 11th hour deal was made.

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  2. Yes, I realize that more employees doesn't necessarily equal bigger government, but thats not the point I was trying to make

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