Anyone else (possibly) getting a mandatory vacation come Tuesday?

[The Mad Monk]

I'm happy as can be right now!

Watching the Republicans transform from a national party into a regional party is awesome.

They're already doomed to lose the Presidency for decades to come. But now it seems they are content with being a minority in both the house and senate!

This is my dream come true.

Now when is the last time I heard something like that, hmmm? Now let me think -- oh yes, it was 1995.

[DaShi]

But back to the issue at hand. The republican's are right. The ACA will destroy the American economy. Not because of the law itself, but because of the republicans shutting down the government and going over the fiscal cliff trying to repeal it.

[Sava]

Now when is the last time I heard something like that, hmmm? Now let me think -- oh yes, it was 1995.

Indeed. The government shutdown cost Dole the election. Clinton's numbers were in the toilet. This was right after the 1994 Republican revolution. Republicans held government hostage then and it didn't work.

1995 was a sign of things to come. Bush was only relevant in 2000 because liberals felt like voting Nader. That's the only reason Florida was an issue.

The Whigs were able to get two Presidents in the White House before they fell apart.

Americans aren't going to forget how Republicans wrecked the economy with idiotic policies, a lack of accountability and governance, and then the country with useless wars... and failed to protect us on 9-11.

[DaShi]

Republicans will be able to recover once the tea party is marginalized.

[Ben Kenobi]

Interesting. Sava thinks that by conceding that the shutdown isn't that big of a deal hurts me. Ok, whatevs, Sava.

[Sava]

Republicans will be able to recover once the tea party is marginalized.

Probably. But they've been around since 1992 screwing things up... a la Ross Perot. They weren't called the Tea Party then. But it's the same basic group of idiots.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes hogwash. Previous shutdowns have usually involved the parties disagreeing on spending numbers.

This is about right (and yes, I think the Democrats in 1987 were in the wrong, re: Fairness Doctrine). Budget process is about spending, but about re-legislating everything. Removing Obamacare spending from the budget is a valid attempt at budget negotiations, delaying parts of it in exchange for a CR is not.

[DinoDoc]

Americans aren't going to forget how Republicans wrecked the economy with idiotic policies, a lack of accountability and governance, and then the country with useless wars... and failed to protect us on 9-11.

History Suggests Shutdown Stakes May Not Be That High

[DinoDoc]

Removing Obamacare spending from the budget is a valid attempt at budget negotiations, delaying parts of it in exchange for a CR is not.

Given the fact Congress appears dead set on never passing a budget again and conducting business through these ridiculous CRs, when do you see these budget negotiations happening?

The debt ceiling fight is going to be fun: Most Americans reject ‘clean’ debt limit increase: poll

[Imran Siddiqui]

CR is basically a mini-budget... but a punted, we'll just do what we did last year budget.

[Sava]

History Suggests Shutdown Stakes May Not Be That High

Oh... so now you care about polls?

[DinoDoc]

CR is basically a mini-budget... but a punted, we'll just do what we did last year budget.

When was the last budget passed by Congress?

[The Mad Monk]

Oh... so now you care about polls?

Only to the extent that you appear to. If you use them to support your argument, we can use them to counter.

[DinoDoc]

Oh... so now you care about polls?

It's an argument from history. If you'd prefer I could explain to you that in the elections after the 1995 shutdown, the GOP kept the majority in the House and expanded its hold on the Senate. Or I could simply use smaller words if either of these arguments are too hard for you to understand.

[Dinner]

Not really. I'm starting to see the appeal of a Let it Burn strategy. I'm simply curious why those are seen as unreasonable demands by posters such as Oerdin and Kentonio.

Here is a partial list of things the Republicans have demanded or else they will shut down the government.

1. A balanced budget amendment [Link]
2. Approving Keystone XL [Link]
3. Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood [Link]
4. Medicare privatization [Link]
5. Tax reform, as outlined by Paul Ryan [Link]
6. The REINS Act, which would require Congress to approve significant federal regulations [Link]
7. Means-testing Social Security [Link]
8. Defunding Obamacare [Link]
9. Allowing employers to eliminate insurance coverage for birth control [Link]
10. An expansion of off-shore drilling [Link]
11. Preserving all the Bush tax cuts [Link]
12. “Trillions” in budget cuts [Link]
13. Slashing funding for food stamps [Link]
14. Protecting mountaintop strip mining [Link]
15. Stripping the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases [Link]
16. Loosening regulation on coal ash [Link]
17. Delaying Obamacare implementation by one year [Link]
18. Repealing a tax on medical devices [Link]
19. Eliminating Social Service Block Grants [Link]
20. Expanding drilling on federal lands [Link]
21. Restricting the child tax credit [Link]


They also want to repeal net neutrality allowing ISPs to control which websites users can and cannot go to. NY Magazine covered this fairly well:

http://nymag.com/dai...omney-plan.html


House Republicans have planned for weeks now to try to avert a government shutdown by promising their members an epic fight over the debt ceiling. Yesterday they began circulating their initial ransom list of demands that President Obama and Senate Democrats must meet or else watch the world economy melt down. It is, uh, rather extensive, and really needs to be read in full to appreciate its megalomaniacal ambition:

One Year Debt Limit Increase

• Not a dollar amount increase, but suspending the debt limit until the end of December 2014.

Similar to what we did earlier this year.

• Want the year long to align with the year delay of Obamacare.
One Year Obamacare delay

Tax Reform Instructions

• Similar to a bill we passed last fall, laying out broad from Ryan Budget principles for what tax reform should look like.

• Gives fast track authority for tax reform legislation
Energy and regulatory reforms to promote economic growth

• Includes pretty much every jobs bill we have passed this year and last Congress

• All of these policies have important positive economic effects.

• Energy provisions

Keystone Pipeline

Coal Ash regulations

Offshore drilling

Energy production on federal lands

EPA Carbon regulations

• Regulatory reform

REINS Act

Regulatory process reform

Consent decree reform

Blocking Net Neutrality

Mandatory Spending Reforms

• Mostly from the sequester replacement bills we passed last year

• Federal Employee retirement reform

• Ending the Dodd Frank bailout fund

• Transitioning CFPB funding to Appropriations

• Child Tax Credit Reform to prevent fraud

• Repealing the Social Services Block grant

Health Spending Reforms

• Means testing Medicare

• Repealing a Medicaid Provider tax gimmick

• Tort reform

• Altering Disproportion Share Hospitals

• Repealing the Public Health trust Fund

Does that list sound vaguely familiar? It’s Mitt Romney’s 2012 economic plan. Almost word for word, in fact. True, Romney proposed to repeal Obamacare, while the House Republicans propose to delay it for a year. But the gambit there — extend the debt ceiling for a year while delaying Obamacare a year, so that the next debt ceiling hike lines up with another Obamacare delay — makes the two tactics essentially the same.


The rest of the list is Romney’s agenda on taxes, regulation of the environment, finance and other business, Medicare, tort reform. That’s their opening demand: implement Romney’s economic plan or melt down the economy.


Now, everybody realizes that the Republicans won’t stick to this demand in the end. The strategy is to begin by demanding everything they want, so that when they “compromise” to merely destroying Obamacare, it seems reasonable. But two aspects of this approach are immediately striking. The first is its tactical wisdom. John Boehner seems to believe that the way out of the shutdown problem is to make extravagant promises for the debt ceiling crisis, which is a much more dire threat, and on which Obama has committed himself not to negotiate. Why would making more extensive promises make this easier for Boehner in the end? Won't it make conservatives that much angrier when he ultimately has to give up the things he promised?


The second point is a normative one. The fact that a major party could even propose anything like this is a display of astonishing contempt for democratic norms. Republicans ran on this plan and lost by 5 million votes. They also lost the Senate and received a million fewer votes in the House but held control owing to favorable district lines. Is there an example in American history of a losing party issuing threats to force the majority party to implement its rejected agenda?