No Winners In A Government Shutdown

There aren't any winners in the recent shutdown of the government but there certainly are losers.  Chief among them is John Boehner and the Republicans in the House of Representatives followed closely by the American people.

John Boehner has worked for several years on defunding or derailing the Affordable Care Act (also known as "Obamacare").  He has brought up a vote in the House more than 40 times to halt it in one way or another and on each of these occasions the Senate has refused to vote on it.  

For anyone who doesn't know how the process works, in order to make a law the legislation is brought to the floor of both houses and both houses must agree on it.  Once an agreement is reached, it is sent to the president for his (hopefully soon her) signature.  If the president doesn't agree with it, he has the power to veto it.

In the case of the Affordable Care Act, the Senate has repeatedly stated that it will not vote on any measure that defunds, delays or derails this law.  Yet Boehner, with great zeal at wasting tax dollars wherever and whenever he can, continues to bring up useless legislation and force the House to vote.  And they have.  And it passes and goes to the Senate.  And they lose each time because the Senate does what they said they would do.

So, Boehner once again brought up a measure that the Senate told him they would not vote on.  He once again saw the measure passed and sent on to the Senate, which threw it in the trash (where it belonged) and Boehner effectively shut down the United States government.

President Obama, in true presidential fashion, refused to cave in to the demands of the Republicans in the House.  Good move on his part.  He allowed the government to shut down but in reality, much of the government remained up and running.  We still got our mail, our military was still funded, our elected officials were still working.  For the majority of Americans, we really didn't see much of a difference.

Then came the vote on the debt ceiling.  If this were not raised the United States would default on our debt and an international crisis would be on the hands of the Republicans.  We knew it, they knew it, the president knew it and the Republicans had to do something.  Sadly for them, there wasn't anything they could do but go along with the Democrats and pass the legislation that the Senate sent to them.  Which they did.

Now the Republicans have lost face with the American people.  They were responsible for the government shutdown, and hopefully, the American people will remember that the next time they go to the polls.

The American people have lost in this latest battle as well.  Our tax dollars just paid for two weeks of vacation for the employees of the government who were furloughed because of Boehner's ineptitude and gross incompetence.

I'm thinking that shutting down the government in an effort to change legislation should be seen as treason and Boehner should be dealt with accordingly.