By David Trower
The U.S. government has shut down, yet the country largely continues to run as usual. The world didn’t end and the economy did not come to a crashing halt.
Americans need to realize that there is only one party that deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the shutdown: the Democrats.
This shutdown has been years in the making. Until March 23 of this year, the Democrat-controlled Senate failed to even vote on a budget for more than four years, and they have yet to send a budget to the White House as of this writing. That is gross negligence to do the job to which they were elected.
Congress is to authorize the money for the government to operate. When one branch of Congress refuses to do its job, it sets up the situation that we are in now.
During that same period of time, since the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives after the 2010 elections, they have consistently passed a budget every year (Democrats in the House failed to pass a budget in 2010 when they were in control).
The law requires that Congress pass a budget every year and Continuing Resolutions are not constitutional.
The House was the only branch of Congress to pass a bill preventing the sequester from going into effect. The House consistently passed bills in the lead-up to the shutdown and the Senate shot each one down and President Barack Obama threatened to veto. The House offered to conference with the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has consistently refused.
The House has floated bills since the shutdown began to get portions of the government back up and running and Democrats oppose them and Obama threatens to veto.
Notice a trend?
Before you think that I hold Republicans completely blameless, they have been guilty of not allowing a conference to occur to reconcile the House-passed and Senate-passed budgets this year.
However, they are representing the constituents who elected them, which is their job. They are not supposed to vote based on their personal agenda. They are to vote based on what their constituents want. (This is why they are called The People’s House.)
In January, Sen. Mitch McConnell said, “If the Senate version is different than the one the House sends over, send it off to conference. That’s how things are supposed to work around here. We used to call it legislating.”
Obviously Reid does not agree, because he is refusing House efforts to conference over a bill to re-open the government.
Democrats are refusing to listen to the will of the people. Americans do not like Obamacare and they support a delay of the individual mandate.
The House voted to eliminate subsidies to Congress and their staff for their health care through the health care exchange.
The Senate Democrats rejected it, instead keeping their entitlements rather than being forced to experience the effects of the law the way they are forcing the average American to experience the effects.
We have a party led by a person that has shown time and time again his inability and refusal to lead.
Obama has expressed numerous times throughout his presidency that he refuses to compromise with Republicans in Congress, and this government shutdown is merely the latest example of his lack of leadership.
Life is built on compromises.
When you refuse to compromise, you act like a spoiled toddler who doesn’t get his way. He refuses to find a solution to the problem.
If that toddler has parents who enable, they just give in to the toddler’s demands and the toddler never learns that life requires compromise.
Obama is that spoiled toddler and he has his pair of enabler parents called Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Reid.
As a result, we have had numerous stalemates under Obama’s presidency because of Pelosi and Reid enabling Obama’s spoiled mentality.
The Republicans in the House and Senate need to stand strong, hold to their principals and allow the Democrats to look as incompetent and spoiled as they are.
David Trower is a senior management information systems and media business double major from Waco. He is the Web editor for the Lariat.
