Armageddon Is Not The Government Shutdown

Armageddon Is Here? The Government Has Shut Down, or Not Armageddon is here; the government has shut down. Armageddon came on March 1 when sequestration sat in. Who’s noticed? Sequestration was not Armageddon. The President shut the White House to tours, but continued to golf at taxpayer expense. Armageddon is when President Obama cannot golf. The Harpies chirp this is Armageddon. The government shut down 17 times before. These were not Armageddon. The Republic survived. The government has shut down, or has it? The President and Congress are being paid. members of Congress and their staffers receive their ObamaCare subsidies. The National Security Agency will continue spying on Americans. The military will not stand down, unlike Benghazi. Grandma will still receive her social security check. Air traffic controllers remain on the job in airport control towers. Federal courthouses are open with judges dispensing justice. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will process mortgages. VA hospitals and clinics remain open. Medicare will continue. The Post Office will deliver the mail. Meat inspections continue. The District of Columbia remains open. Passports and visas will be issued. Prison guards remain on guard. Food lunches will be served and food stamps issued. The lights are on and the water is flowing. That is a shutdown? If politics is measured by electability, then the President is a great politician. If politics is the art of the possible, then President Obama is a near-failure. If politics is reaching a consensus, then President Barack Hussein Obama is a failure. Great politicians, such as Presidents Lyndon Baines Johnson and Ronald Reagan, and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil, recognized the need to let the other side prevail on some issues. Leave them some dignity. Respectfully disagree with them while beating them politically. That’s not the President’s modus operandi as President. He will negotiate with Iran, Russia, and the Taliban, but not with the Republicans. It’s his way or the highway. He wants to crush the Republicans and other domestic “opponents.” He trashed the Supreme Court as the Justices had to sit quietly as he read his State of the Union Address. He invited House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan to a budget speech in April 2011, and then trashed him. He could have solved the budget problem a year and a half ago by reaching a grand bargain, including tax increases, with the Republicans. He actually reached an agreement, but then abruptly demanded additional tax increases. He knowingly made Speaker Boehner an offer he knew the Speaker could not accept. His second M.O. is to demand legislation in response to an “emergency.” He faced an emergency, an economic collapse, in his first months in office. Thus, he could demand passage of a pork laden “Stimulus” Bill. He could demand passage of a financial reform act, the Dodd Frank Bill. He also had a filibuster proof 60 Democratic Senate seats and Democratic control of the House. 2010 was a great victory nationally for the Republicans. President Clinton veered and tacked after he faced a similar result in the 1994 midterm elections. President Obama has attacked, but his apocalyptic claims of an emergency have lost credibility. We faced the fiscal cliff a year ago, followed by sequestration, and now the government shutdown. The President is like the little boy who cried fire or the wolf one too many times. The President and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid desired a government shutdown because they believe it is a political gain for the Democrats and a political loser for the Republicans. They believe they will win on the budget and then defeat the Republicans in a few weeks on the debt limit increase. They know the Republicans mishandled the budget. The GOP House should have sent to the Senate separate appropriations bills for individual agencies and branches of the government, but didn’t. The Democrats are playing raw politics with America’s future for the sake of politics. By the way, the individual mandate and the health exchanges under ObamaCare go into effect today. The Democrats are elated that the Republican “shut” down of the government stole the news coverage from ObamaCare. ObamaCare may develop in future years into an economic Armageddon for America, but this shutdown is not.