I've neglected updating my blog this week because I'm so fired up about the situation in Washington, that I was afraid I'd start ranting on and on about how frustrated I am about politicians who have been elected to protect the people of this country and they are doing the exact opposite.
And .... here I go.
These avaricious politicians are so caught up in their own agendas, they are now actually harming those people that they took an oath to protect. Along the way, they're sabotaging our economy which hasn't fully recovered from the Great Recession. And they're putting our national sovereignty and reputation in danger while validating to the world that the United States is an unstable superpower that sacrifices its own citizens on the altar of narcissism and greed.
I'm absolutely flabbergasted by these sworn officials who are now crippling our country; I actually see it as a form of terrorism. They claim to carry around a copy of the Constitution in their coat pocket, but have clearly never read it. Or if they did read it, maybe they just forgot that once a bill has passed the House of Representatives and is signed in to Law - as the Affordable Care Act was in 2010 - it's a done deal. Yes. Well. They don't like the law.
So, they want a compromise.
The problem is, compromise happens before the enacting legislation. Once it's passed, you don't shut down the government because you don't like the results. The boat has ... how do you say ... LEFT THE PROVERBIAL DOCK. And now, instead of serving as cooperative statesman like our forefathers who wrote the Constitution 224 years ago, they're undermining that thing (and beloved country) that they're tasked to uphold.
Oh, I understand there's frustration.
I personally think that all Americans should have health insurance, and all children should have the right to a free public education - with a free lunch - if they need it. I'm so darn liberal! But wait, I'm not in the minority! At the end of September, two-thirds of American voters thought that the Affordable Health Care Act should be given a chance to succeed and less than 10% thought that Congress should delay and defund it. From what I can tell from the polls currently, more than 80% of Americans want for the shutdown to end. While the light traffic this week due to so few cars on the roads around DC has been superb - I know that the longer this shutdown drags on, the worse things will be for our country. Interestingly enough, not everyone sees it that way.
One of our neighbors is a great guy and I have a lot of respect for him. Until the subject of politics comes up and then I wonder how he survived the traumatic head injury he obviously sustained at some point in his life. As a card-carrying member of the Tea Party and NRA, he packs a concealed weapon with him whenever he steps foot out of the house; sports the coiled rattle snake logo on his license plate; and thinks that the nearly 1,000,000 furloughed employees of the federal government should be enjoying their time off this week while the Republicans "fix" things in Washington.
Heck, I'm sure those furloughed employees would be enjoying their break ... if their homes were paid off, they had six months worth of income saved up in the bank, and they didn't have to fret over how long they can survive without a paycheck. But I spoke to a few of my furloughed worker friends this week and all of them have bills to pay. And children to feed. And if they don't get back to work post haste, they are going to be in dire straights. Especially those families where both spouses are employed by the federal government, or only one spouse works for the government and is the sole provider.
We might be in dire straights, too. Because thus far, I've told three families they can come live in our basement if necessary.
