Govt. Shutdown: House GOP Owns This Mess

Was it realistic to believe that Obama would agree to reverse his hardest-fought policy accomplishment?

Last Modified: Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at 12:00 a.m.

Seriously, what has happened to my party? I watched in disbelief as my GOP, the party of fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility, gleefully caused the government to shut down.

Most pundits and political observers didn't really believe that the strategy reversal of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, would actually cross the threshold of sanity. Back in March, the speaker made clear that tying defunding or delaying Obamacare to funding the government was bad strategy and not going to happen. But Boehner turned 180 degrees.

House Republicans were whipped into a frenzy by some three dozen members, whose political ideology and hatred of all things Obama trumped their ability or desire to govern.

Republicans were turning against other Republicans — and House Republicans, outside of the 30 or so hard-core "reformers," could barely contain their contempt for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Unable to accomplish anything in his own chamber, Cruz was putting House Republicans in the untenable position of doing the dirty work and taking the blame.

As Congress returned from summer break, two major congressional actions were needed:

■ Passage of a continuing resolution to allow funding of the government to continue without a budget.

■ Raising the debt limit so the full faith and credit of the U.S. government would not be in jeopardy from defaulting on our debt.

Both of these should have been accomplished easily, without drama, posturing or playing games.

Instead of sending over a clean CR to the Senate, the House sent over several versions contingent on either defunding or delaying portions of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

This law was passed three years ago and is the single-most-significant achievement of the sitting president, who was re-elected and who has the power to veto anything sent to him. Was it realistic to believe that President Barack Obama would agree to reverse his hardest-fought policy accomplishment?

What is particularly galling is that this ill-conceived and constantly changing plan was done at the expense of the American people, the same people the speaker professed to be protecting.

On top of that, the GOP House insisted that it funded the government and that the shutdown was everyone's fault but its own. This not only defied logic, but also defied its members' own gleeful reactions and high-fives to their shutdown success.

This is not a game. These are real people being affected. They put 850,000 employees out of work by shutting down the government.

While insisting that American people don't want Obamacare, they ignored the polls showing that Americans are evenly split on the Affordable Care Act and that 72 percent of Americans are opposed to a government shutdown over Obamacare.

While complaining that the Senate leader and president weren't willing to negotiate, they failed to acknowledge that we do not have a system of minority rule.

To be clear: It is not OK to shut down government. It is not OK to default on our obligations. It is not OK to create a crisis. This is not a game. Real lives and livelihoods are on the line.

You, the GOP House, own this mess. That's right, you own it. No amount of spin will change that.

Speaker Boehner should be ashamed of himself. He allowed the children having temper tantrums to be rewarded for their bad behavior.

It only takes 17 House GOP members to stop this foolishness. Fortunately, Republican congressmen are stepping forward to correct this reckless act.

They need to fix this immediately.

Send over a clean continuing resolution. Vote out a debt-limit increase without conditions. Then sit down with the Senate and the president to address unresolved issues such as debt reduction, spending cuts, Obamacare glitches and immigration reform in a bipartisan manner — with true, good-faith negotiations.


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