Government Shutdown, 2013 - Day 16

The default that wasn't...

[T]here is no such thing as default unless there is an actual evil attempt from the administration. When you have 18 percent of GDP coming in in cash, less than 2 percent going out in debt coverage—I’m stunned you all fall for it in the press. None of you were math majors, were you?”

We are all (well most of us) are being played for suckers, again, with a complicit press dutifully playing their part. Remember, if this were past shutdowns like when Republicans were in charge this would all be the President's fault for refusing to compromise. With the press, it is ALWAYS the fault, no matter what it is, of the Republicans.

By the way (and because I KNOW you did not hear this from the MSM) the House GOP voted 11 times to reopen the government.

As Obama is fond of saying "Never let a crisis go to waste".

If you are really serious about wanting to fix things (which most politicians on both sides are not) here is a plan that would actually work: An across-the-board cut of 5% in every government department's budget line. (You can't convince me -- and you'll certainly have a hard time convincing voters -- that there's not 5% waste to be found in any government program.) Then a five-year freeze at that level. Likewise, a one-year moratorium on new regulations, followed by strict limits on new regulatory action: Perhaps a rule that all new business regulations won't have the force of law until approved by Congress.

As has been noted here (earlier) and elsewhere, this may have started with (the train wreck known as) Obamacare but this issue is bigger than that and the GOP really NEEDS to draw a line in the sand here and now. No more. Enough is enough. We are bankrupting this country and enslaving our children for generations to come. The debt is too large and is growing every day. The government is printing money as fast as they can to prop up this mess of an economy while they continue to regulate what is left of it to death. Quantitative easement (fancy talk to printing more money than is needed to replace money physically destroyed) is flooding the economy with paper that is melting the buying power of your current earnings as well as your retirement account. Wages are flat, growth is flat, more people are out of work (officially unemployed as well as having just given up looking for work) at levels not seen for decades. The country is burning and while Obama plays the fiddle.