Red vs Blue- Failure on Both Sides

Another day passes and the government is still shutdown. You have one side that claims they just want to talk. You have another that refuses to talk. Both sides claim to want to end the shutdown. Neither is making a real move to do so. Both sides are more concerned with a "political victory" than doing an actual thing about the shutdown.

To their credit, the House GOP has passed bills to fund parts of the government. The Senate has rejected the very notion. Shame goes to both sides. I like to think that I fall in the direct middle of this argument. Both sides are wrong for various reasons. They are like children arguing over building a sandcastle. Both sides want it built, but they can't decide if it is going to have a moat or not, so they aren't going to build the castle at all. It is far better to have wanted and never created than to create and not have exactly what you were planning on, right?

The main grip for the GOP seems to be the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. Did anyone else notice that Democrats (including the President) who once embraced the "Obamacare" moniker have reverted back to referring to the law by its legal name? The ACA is a flawed law. The website has failed to live up to expectation and a lot of people are seeing their premiums go up. The line from the President about keeping your doctor/insurance has been proven blatantly false. The law is so messed up that the President has taken it upon himself to make changes to the law, circumventing the Constitution. My disagreement with the law aside, the GOP is going about the repeal of it in a manner that is to the detriment of this country.

Instead of shutting down the government, why not sue the Obama administration over his illegal changing of the laws? We know that the Justice Department, ran by Obama besty Eric Holder isn't going to file the appropriate paperwork it should in light of the disregard for the Constitution, but that shouldn't stop the House. They could impeach the President for his changing of the law unilaterally. I am not talking about moving to remove him from office. I am just suggesting they impeach him regarding this and get the original law restored for the LONG TERM victory of having the law repealed, following the proper, legal channels; not shutting down the US government and making the United States a laughing stock on the international scene.

The Democrats, on the other hand, are committing just as much jackassery. Refusing to fund parts of the government for fear that the GOP will look like saviors is comparable to not having a birthday party for your child because you don't like cake. The GOP will not get out of this looking pretty (neither will the GOP) just like the kids at a cake-free birthday party won't be licking frosting off of a knife. Another place where the Dems get this wrong is with the refusal to delay the individual mandate in the ACA for individuals. If this law is so great, why the need for the mandate? Because without it, young people won't buy in and the law needs those young people to pay for the older people. Nothing is free, folks. Ignorant people claiming that the ACA makes insurance affordable for all are blind to the truth. It is something learned in high school level Economics- TINSTAFL.

Politicians on both sides alienate the American people when they refuse to repeal the exemptions to Congress under the ACA. While their are some GOP members that publicly call for the removal of such exemptions, some of them do it only because they know that such a repeal will never pass the Senate. It makes me sick.

If I had my way, the ACA would be stripped permanently of the individual mandate as well as corporate mandates. Their can be tax incentives for corporations to provide insurance for employees (didn't that exist prior to ACA). Provide tax breaks to insurers who allow people with pre-existing conditions to enroll. Don't mandate that I have to buy something I don't want and call it a tax. Their is enough of that already. We are taxed enough in our day-to-day life.

As far as the shutdown goes, the GOP needs to go ahead, eat this one and pass a clean CR to fund the government for 6 months. As much as I hate to "kick the can down the road" AGAIN, they should one last time. Then both sides should go to committee and FIX the damn budget. Strip ALL pork from Washington spending. An immigration bill shouldn't include money to boost tourism advertisement for Nevada. Both sides are equally guilty of this. That is a subject for another post, though.

Bottom line, we have to demand the fix. Call your Representative and Senators. Tell them to stop the fighting and fund the government. Leverage them to do better than balance the budget. Get us to a balance surplus. Use that surplus to PAY DOWN the debt instead of just making interest payments. If they refuse, show them your anger in the voting booth instead of just shrugging it off. We have the power, people. We just have to use it.

Who is Really Responsible for the Government Shutdown?

Watching Fox News one will quickly learn that the blame for the government shutdown falls squarely on Harry Reid, the Senate and President Barack Obama. Change the channel to MSNBC or CNN, and it becomes evident that John Boehner, Ted Cruz and the House of Representatives are the cause of the shutdown. Who does the blame really fall on?

Us. We the people. The citizens that only really care about politics while blogging or blasting out tweets. The people who really only get active in the political debate during election seasons. The people who vote almost exclusively along party lines, very rarely listening to what candidates actually say nor the actual substance of their political views. In the age of a 24 hour news cycle that does nothing to hide partisanship, we turn to talking heads on TV and radio to tell us what to think.

Look at most Twitter arguments. They generally consist of 140 character blurbs paraphrasing the words of talking heads on the cable news networks. Self described conservatives parrot the likes of Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Eric Bolling, et al. Self described Progressives/Liberals use the words of Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz,  Al Sharpton, etc, etc. Very rarely do people espouse their own opinions or views in their OWN words.

We let the pundits spoon feed us "our" opinions and vote for who they tell us we should. These people are trying to draw an audience, which I applaud! It is hard, however, to draw viewers in with moderate, common sense views. So these folks do what pays the bills and take a hard right/left approach with commentary. They dangle that politically charged carrot right in front of us and boy, do we run as hard as we can to eat it.

Any time a Republic lawmaker takes a moderate approach to an issue, that lawmaker is branded a RINO. A Democrat voicing a moderate thought on an issue is a DINO. No one ever takes a second to listen to what those lawmakers are actually saying and think about whether or not it actually makes sense. The moderate approaches of people like John Mccain (one of the greatest men to ever be a senator), John Boehner (until recently), Ted Poe and others are blasted by those self proclaimed conservatives as "caving to the progressives!" Someone like Joe Manchin, Tom Carper, etc are accused of catering to the Tea Party.

We instead let the talking heads convince us the extreme partisan views of people like Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and so on and so on are the only solutions to our problems. If you think about it, it is really sad.

We are never going to support every position of ever politician in every instance. We must, however, stop letting the talking heads stop telling us what to think! If Ronald Reagan where to see the GOP of today, he would be pissed. If FDR where the President, he would tell the Democratic party to get their crap together. And if the the Founding Fathers could see what has become of political discourse today, I think they would kick some ass in a bipartisan manner.

How do we fix it? We get involved. We right/call/email our elected officials. We listen to what they say. Observe how they vote on issues. And if what they are doing isn't making sense, we don't re-elect them. We show the talking heads that the average American isn't hard right/left. We are somewhere closer to the center. We vote for people who don't just talk the latest party tags, but people who do what is truly better for their constituents. We stop voting for people who go to Washington just to go their and gain national attention, but those who listen to the people they represent! Until then, politicians are going to keep playing tug-o-war and someday, that rope will break.

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It has been a while since I blogged. I was taking a break from political blogging and news to refresh. I am now going to get back into the swing of things. Please feel free to follow me. Leave comments and lets get engaged in a real conversation. 

-The Independent Thinker