Arriving in America just before the federal funding ran out on midnight Friday January 19th, was a familiar recurring nightmare! The last shutdown in 2013 cost American taxpayers $24 billion. At the time, I wrote two blogs. Lockdown Is a Political Lockdown on September 30, 2013, and Shutdown to Default on October 7, 2013. Digesting what happened then and now, I decided to shut down my blog writing for a day. Hence the 24-hour delay of this blog.
Back in 2013, it was all about the Republican Congress trying to derail and kill Obamacare. It was a political maneuver that failed.
This time, was the first time the White House, Senate and House of Representatives were in the hands and controlled by one party – Republicans.
They didn’t care what happened to America and its taxpayers because all the career politicians in Washington D.C. still get paid during a shut down – while hundreds of thousands of federal employees and the services taxpayers are paying for would not!
There is something wrong with this picture!
American taxpayers paying their taxes, federal employees doing their job, not getting what they are promised, while career politicians not doing their job and getting paid for their failed promises is the ultimate-definitive proof of how broken America is politically.
This was the 4th– shutdown in a couple decades at a cost of six-billion taxpayer dollars a week. Naturally, Democrats and Republicans furiously and vindictively blame each other for the shutdown as they head into the 2018 midterm elections. Trump Shutdown and Schumer Shutdown became the blame game war chants.
Republicans do have the better-catchy chant going into the midterm elections. Polls and editorial opinions, including The New York Times – blamed the Democrats – and criticism they don’t need with the looming midterm elections that were theirs for the taking.
The shut down only lasted a weekend as both parties came to their political senses and decided to again kick the proverbial can down the road for three more weeks, re-open government while they continue to be dysfunctional as usual. At least the government is open – even though it is broken – in time to listen to President Trump’s State of The Union on January 30th.
We ain’t seen nothing yet. The 3-day shutdown is nothing compared to what is on the horizon the next three weeks while coming to terms with how broken and need of desperate repairs America is politically!