Government Shut Down and Politics!

If you are a regular reader, you can probably guess my political slant.  I try not to push an agenda, and would love to see more comments of a truly debate driven nature.  That is one thing we do not seem to have in our nation's Capitol.   Today, I am going to look at the Government Shut Down, and the politics that are driving it, and what it means to our economy.

First, the shut down is related to Congress NOT doing their job.  They are supposed to write a budget every year.  It is to originate in the House of Representatives, and then sent to the Senate.  The Senate can accept the budget, reject the budget, and suggest changes, but the Senate cannot write a budget.  The House has sent budgets to the Senate.  They have ignored them.  They have not voted on them in the last 7 or 8 years.  As a result, the House has sent Continuing resolutions.  The CR's are quick ways to keep funding up and running so the government can operate.  They are NOT budgets.  No line items are debated in the continuing resolution, it just extends the last budget for a specified period of time.  According to the "American Spectator"  the last real budget was passed in 1997.  That means that no government manager really knows how much his budget is, and cannot plan on how to spend it.  It would be like your boss, instead of telling you what your salary is, said here's a few thousand dollars, I'll get back to you later on your salary.  This is no way of running a nation; and this rests primarily with the Senate, and their leadership.

Now what about the shut down?  It seems only about 17% of the government is shut down.  But the Executive branch, that's the one led by President Obama, has to decide on what positions are essential.  As I watch the news, that seems to be the areas that will provide the most pain for the American people.  Closing down public access to memorials and parks.  Instead of posting a sign saying there are no employees present, proceed at your own risk, they wish to inconvenience as many as possible.  This is pure politics.  You can tell by what is allowed, and what isn't allowed.  The example is the WWII memorial is closed, and barricaded.  Yet in the relatively same physical space a immigration rally is allowed.  It is simply a power grad by imperial politicians.  This is NOT to say Republicans in the House are blameless.  They are trying to grab power as well.  Depending on which side of the political spectrum you are on, your side is battling for the people.  The truth is, none are battling for the people, only for their own power bases, and each are spouting rhetoric to elicit their base's admiration, and that is not productive.  This shut down is also driven by President Obama not even entertaining a negotiated settlement.  Perhaps this is the one good thing to come of the shut down.  If we can't agree, isn't better to just not spend?  Isn't that what we do in our personal lives?

The shut down seems to revolve around the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare.  There is a solution to our health care dilemma, but this writer doesn't believe that the ACA is it.  The ACA is increasing premiums, at a time that is not helpful to the general economy.  These increased premiums take money away from other areas that might be better at getting everyone working again.  The ACA is affecting unemployment.  Employers only have a finite amount of money, determined by profit margins and gross sales.  They have to structure their companies to be solvent.  This means small business may not hire, even if they feel a need, if that would push them over 50 employees.  It means larger companies are cutting hours, so they do not have a large expense for full time employees that they can't afford.  Rather than addressing these issues, Congress and the President are fighting in the media.  The reasonable man would delay implementation while Congress reviews, something the liberals dread.  The ACA is just an entry in to a single payer system, it was designed to fail, and they know it.  The intent was to rush to fix it with single payer, gathering even more money in to Washington DC, one of the places least affected by our current economy.

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Not to worry, because this is all about power, the shut down will not last.  Common sense politicians are hard to find, and they will be silenced.  They will be called names like tea bagger.  They will be impugned, all to save the power base by mainstream Democrats AND Republicans.  I recently watched a history show about the Founding Fathers.  In it was a break down on President Washington lamenting political parties, how smart that man was.  Some say we need a third party, perhaps, but when it goes mainstream, will it be any better than what we have now?  I would in fact recommend voting third party next year, send a message to the political establishment to work out differences and let the American people get back to the work of driving our economy.  I see some world governments, primarily using parliament systems, that must build coalitions to form a government.  It's a little messier at the beginning, but with many parties at the table it might be argued that those governments are more responsive to their people.  I know ours seems broken...

Spend Wisely!