Chalk up another loss for the GOP
“Why did this happen? What was this for? We could have taken this vote three weeks ago. This was completely unnecessary.”
Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif)
“Victory,” he says?
Well, The Great Republican Hissy-fit of 2013 is in the books.
Things are pretty much back to abnormal.
Last Wednesday night, about a half hour before a Republican-induced collapse of the whole danged United States economy was about to happen, President Obama put pen to paper, and he chased the world’s debt collectors away (at least for the time being).
Obama meant business. Ultimately, 87 Republicans said, “I give.”
Hardly anything changed since Republicans embarked on their meaningless journey back in September. Well, that’s not altogether true. Republicans now have a brand new Head Hissy-Fitter — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — who led them down a steep path to plummeting poll numbers, while he caused a near Civil War among his fellow Republicans.
Cruz failed to defund Obamacare. But he did help to defund untold numbers of bank accounts of many innocent people who live paycheck to paycheck.
He’s only been in the U.S. Senate eight months, and he’s already discovered creative ways of wasting the people’s money, while claiming he’s trying to save it. It’s estimated that during the 16 days the federal government was shutdown, there was a loss of $24 billion in economic activity. Why, then, would Cruz rush to nearby cameras and claim victory?
“We saw the House of Representatives take a courageous stand listening to the American people. That everyone in official Washington, just weeks earlier, said would never happen. That was a remarkable victory. To see the House engage in a profile in courage,” Cruz said.
Courageous? A “Remarkable victory?” Cruz, and his tea party-backed functionaries in Congress got nothing from this little exercise. Nothing!
Posturing about “defunding” an existing law, while the government shuts its doors, is nothing more than a fool’s errand. Threatening to jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States is no lofty goal, either. Cruz and his cohorts are guilty of both.
Ultra-conservative Grover Norquist, he of the famed no-tax pledge, signed by most of the Republicans in Congress, was outraged about the antics of his fellow conservatives these past few weeks.
“They hurt the conservative movement, they hurt people’s health care, they hurt the country’s economic situation and they hurt the Republican Party,” Norquist said about the Cruz and his “Cruzettes.”
In the future, there’ll be more opportunities for Republicans to get even more unpopular. I can’t wait.
The government will be funded through Jan. 15. The debt limit has been extended through Feb. 7.
Government by crisis is a recurring theme that will ensure that on Jan.14, then on Feb.6, Republicans will be stomping their feet and claiming Obama is some sort of devil incarnate — before they sign-off on new economic deals. Past, as they say, is prologue.
Last January, when Republicans took on Obama and lost that edition of a fiscal crisis, they vowed that he’d have to sit down with them in the future and “negotiate.” John Boehner’s spokesmen, Brendon Buck, told reporters, “If they want to get the debt limit raised, they are going to have to engage and accept that reality,” he claimed.
In fact, Pennsylvania’s Republican Senator, Pat Toomey, issued an even stronger warning. He said he’d join his fellow Republicans if they’d risk the possibility of a default in the future.
“That’s disruptive, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the path we’re on. We absolutely have to have this fight over the debt limit,” Toomey said.
That was last January. The Republicans DID put up a fight. The government DID shutdown.
But there were a few things that Toomey and his fellow Republicans hadn’t counted on? That President Obama WOULD put up a fight. That he WOULD stand firm.
More importantly, that the vast number of Americans who witnessed Republicans fight a fight, that they knew they couldn’t win, grew weary of their crusade. In the end, Republicans lost — again. When will they ever learn?
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
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