By Edgar Thornton
This is the first in a series of weekly columns by Edgar Thornton called the Current.
21 hours. That is how long one senator from Texas spoke in opposition to the “Affordable Care Act” or Obamacare. He read “Green Eggs and Ham” to his children, made a “Star Wars” reference, read tweets and railed against Obamacare.
This was part of an effort to pass a continuing resolution that funded all of the government except for Obamacare. A noble effort to rid the country of a piece of bad legislation; a doomed one.
A bill that funded the government but did not fund Obamacare passed the house. It failed to earn enough votes in the senate. Even if it did the president would veto it. To override a presidential veto a two-thirds majority in both chambers is required. This would be impossible.
The bill had no shot at defunding Obamacare. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) knew this. But he and others had continued to hype the “last chance to defeat Obamacare” for the last few weeks and months finally ending in his 21 hour speech.
What rational person stands up and talks for 21 straight hours with no breaks in order to prevent a bill he supports from being voted on? The entire defund Obamacare movement has lacked any rational thought.
Obamacare is bad. It raises premiums and adds to the federal debt. But that doesn’t mean shutting down the government will help that.
Obamacare is not the only thing hurting our country; a shutdown is too. Economists at Macroeconomic Advisers say that a two-week shutdown will lower Gross Domestic Product by 0.3%.
Blindly trying to repeal Obamacare is distracting congress from tackling real issues like debt and jobs. Issues that Republicans have much more support on. Issues that Republicans can win with.
The job of the Republicans in congress is to help their constituents, help their country and help their party.
Shutting down the government with no result is not helping any of those.
A logical way to help all three is to use conservative ways to reform the health care system. Expanding health care across state lines. Changing the legal issues around health care and reforming Medicaid and Medicare to help the people who truly need it most are all effective ways to reform health care that Republicans and the tea party can support.
Not offering any solutions is going to convince anyone to repeal Obamacare.
The shutdown is not only hurting our country it is hurting the Republican Party too. It makes the party look weak and unstable. By making the party weak and unstable it hurts the chances of regaining control of the Senate in the next election cycle and getting closer to accomplishing their ultimate goal of repealing Obamacare.
However, The shutdown is not just the failure of House Republicans. It is a failure of everyone in Congress and the President to do their jobs.
The President and the Leadership from both parties need to get together in a room and hatch out a deal. Until they do that they are hurting themselves.
The President himself said he refuses to negotiate with congress over the budget and the debt ceiling. “I will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the United States,” President Obama on September 26th four days before the shutdown said.
This is the wrong mindset; compromise involves both sides.
If both sides give a little this gridlock can end.
Hundreds of thousands of Federal workers are furloughed, certain food inspections have stopped. National Parks are closed and Veterans are being shut out of National Monuments. The shutdown is hurting our country, it should end.
For more on the government shutdown check out an opinion piece from Cody Owen and Chris Winegarden called An End to Civility.
Cover Photo is from Wes Browning on Flikr and is used under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License
