With immigration reform, gun control, jobs, the economy and a host of other priorities ignored, mishandled or otherwise botched by the worst Congress of the modern era (and maybe ever), it’s time for Congressional Republicans to make an utter mess of government itself. This week the fools on the Hill try to beat the clock on a continuing resolution on spending, and may God help the United States of America.
Will the government still be fully operational at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday? Not if House Republicans and their fellow travelers in the Senate get their way. With the House GOP determined to make a continuing resolution contingent on the demise or delay of Obamacare, and the Senate’s Democratic majority determined to resist the effort, the eleventh-hour negotiations look suspiciously similar to the negotiations gone before, which you might remember have led precisely nowhere.
Even if, by some unanticipated miracle, a continuing resolution amenable to both chambers can be cobbled together, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew reckons that the nation will bash its head on the debt ceiling no later than October 17, another unnecessary fiscal crisis tailor-made for Republican foot-stomping intransigence and pre-adolescent brinkmanship. The President summed all this up the other day, neatly:
“No Congress before this one has ever, ever, in history been irresponsible enough to threaten default, to threaten an economic shutdown, to suggest America not pay its bills, just to try to blackmail a president into giving them some concessions on issues that have nothing to do with a budget.”
Also on Tuesday, the health insurance exchanges, a central component of Obamacare, are scheduled to open, and according to remarks by the President last Friday, they will: “Those marketplaces will be open for business on Tuesday, no matter what, even if there’s a government shutdown. That’s a done deal.”
Alarmed by the notion that Iran and the United States might eventually be able to coexist in harmony, Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu heads to the White House on Monday and the United Nations on Tuesday, to dish up the sort of hard-line, inflammatory rhetoric that makes him a perpetual threat to the security of his own nation and the entire Middle East.
Speaking of regressive regimes, the People’s Republic of China’s celebrates its National Day on Tuesday. The government has drawn criticism for spending the equivalent of $93,000 on “an enormous psychedelic-looking red pot topped with huge fake flowers and imitation peaches,” installed in Tiananmen Square last week for the festivities.
Wendy Davis, the state senator who filibustered Texas’ restrictive new abortion law – later passed after Rick Perry rigged the game with a special legislative session – is expected to announce this week that she will run to replace Perry, who’ll be spending the next three years prying his foot out of his mouth so he can jam it right back in if he decides on another humiliating presidential run.