Government Shutdown

One hour ago the US government had to shut down, because a budget had not been passed by the Congress, and so there is no money to run the government and pay its employees

Most likely a great majority of Americans don't understand what the consequences of this are going to be. I am sure we will be hearing of new consequences every day that this goes on. One thing is certain, there will be a big impact on the economy. Today, the day preceding the actual shutdown, the US stock markets took a bit hit in anticipation of the government shutdown.

Let's look at why this happened. The immediate cause is that the US House of Representatives refused to pass a budget without a provision that would have delayed the implementation of "Obamacare" by one year; and the Senate would not accept a budget law that contained this provision.

So maybe, if an agreement could not be reached, you have to figure both sides were inflexible and would not compromise.

I think the House, and particularly the Republicans in the House, are to blame. There are many Republican congressmen, many of them allied with the Tea Party, who have been obsessively resolved to undo Obamacare. Forty-two times the House has voted—unsuccessfully—to repeal Obamacare. Should we admire their persistence? That might be a fit subject for debate.

My take on it is that the Tea Partiers will sacrifice the economic welfare of the country to their own ideology—they'd say "principles," I am sure—and are absolutely determined not to compromise at all.

Someone once said that politics is the art of the practical. That does not mean the art of absolute and uncompromising ideology, which is something quite different.

But you can step back yet one step and blame the people who elected the Tea Partiers, these well-nigh insane ideologues who would not accept the defeat of their 42 attempts to repeal Obamacare but instead were willing to maneuver the economic welfare of the US to the brink of a cliff, holding the raising of the debt ceiling, which would let the government continue to operate, hostage. You know the "game" of "chicken," where two young men drive their cars at one another until one loses his nerve and veers and thus avoids the collision? How many people have been killed in that "game"? Well now the same thing has happened with the US economy.

Copyright © 2013