Ask Marion | October 1, 2013 at 9:25 am - WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — Congress has missed the deadline for averting the first partial government shutdown in 17 years.
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The Office of Management and Budget released a memo just before midnight on Monday instructing agencies to “now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations.”
Agencies “should continue to closely monitor developments, and OMB will provide further guidance as appropriate,” the OMB announced.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said it was a “sad” day for the country as he announced the news on the Senate floor after midnight.
As the clock struck midnight Monday, House Republicans were demanding that the Senate negotiate their demand for a one-year delay in making millions of people buy health insurance under President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law. Minutes before midnight, the White House ordered a shutdown.
The Democratic Senate on Monday twice rejected GOP demands to delay key portions of what has become to known as ObamaCare as a condition for keeping the government open.
An estimated 800,000 federal workers faced furloughs though many were told work a half day Tuesday. Critical functions like air traffic control and military operations will continue. Social Security benefits will be paid. National parks and most federal offices will close.
Watcher’s Council Forum Thoughts Earlier in the Day: Will There Be A Federal Government shut down,And Do You Approve Or Disapprove?
The Razor: I used to get worked up about these things, but they’ve happened so many times and become such a Washington DC insider sport that I’ve lost interest. I neither know nor care whether the federal government will shut down. As far as I’m concerned the less it functions the better. I hate to sound cynical but seriously, how many times have we gone through this?
The Independent Sentinel: I do believe there will be a shutdown and I also believe the media will successfully put the blame on Republicans. As much as I don’t want a shutdown or see Republicans blamed, I believe it is the right thing to do. The Republicans are trying to do the right thing. They are doing what most of their constituents want, not just the Tea Party as the Democrats would have us believe.
The reason I feel the way I do is because I see ObamaCare as irrevocably damaging this country. I listened to Bill O’Reilly the other day talk about how melodramatic people are about ObamaCare. This isn’t about melodrama, it’s about our freedom. Our Founding Fathers didn’t sacrifice all that they sacrificed to have us turn around and sell ourselves to the highest bidders in government.
Some of the things ObamaCare does:
- ObamaCare gives the government the right to tax the people as much as they want on anything they want. This law should never have been declared constitutional.
- The Affordable Care Act was supposed to give the people in this country access to affordable healthcare. The CBO says, however, that 30 million will be without healthcare under ObamaCare.
- The CBO also said it was unsustainable. Mr. Obama said that premiums would go down by as much as 3000% but they are skyrocketing in some cases.
- Mr. Obama assures us there will be subsidies, but who pays these subsidies? Roughly, 41% of the country will pay for the other 59%. If that’s his idea of justice, I want no part of it.
- Worst of all, we are losing the 40-hour work week. My guess is that Obama will make some concessions to unions and this could be one of them, but then who pays for that? Someone has to pay for this free healthcare.
- Many believe that healthcare should not be profit making. However, instead of the insurance companies profiting, the government will profit. We can’t sue the government – there will be no judicial recourse. There is also the problem of doctors profiting. If they don’t make a profit, we will see the end of private practice and we will only get our health services through clinics and hospitals. The service will be lacking and the lines will be long.
- ObamaCare will ruin our healthcare system.
- ObamaCare isn’t ready for prime time and a lot of people will be hurt by it.
- People who are opposed to paying for abortions will be forced to pay for them. That is unconscionable.
- Kathleen Sebelius gets to decide who lives and who dies. What was that she said – some live, some die?
- An IPAB comprised of non-medical, unelected bureaucrats will operate as a rogue government and decide the fate of the elderly and handicapped by limiting payments to doctors and hospitals. The IPAB operates independent of Congress and only the Executive controls it. IPAB can probably levy taxes. That is too much power in the hands of one branch of government.
- Our healthcare records will not be secure and we could easily be subject to tyranny of government agencies and rogue employees.
- The bill is almost 20,000 pages. That can’t be good.
- ObamaCare is about the government taking over 18% of the economy.
Every doctor I know thinks this is an awful bill. It was written in secret by special interests. There is a lot of money and influence involved. We are giving our health over to a small number of elite.
We will eventually be stuck with a single payer system and most freedom-loving Americans don’t see that as a good thing. The non-profit co-ops subsidized by the government and the many demands placed on insurance companies will force them out of business.
The White House is rewriting this bill, not Congress. They have amended it 19 times without going through Congress.
If this bill goes through as is, we won’t be the country we were.
The Republicans finally look like the party of Lincoln. It wasn’t easy for him and his party then and this won’t be easy now.
GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: Shut it down. Keep the Gov out of our hair for a while. Besides, they can’t harm us while they’re out of biz.
JoshuaPundit: I think the chances of a shutdown are 65-35 that it will happen. I see it, overall, as a positive thing.
For five years, we’ve been governed by a dysfunctional, arrogant demagogue and his enablers engaged in the looting of the treasury to reward their political cronies, Chicago-style. It’s the height of irony to see a president and his allies who wasted a trillion taxpayer dollars on a bogus ‘stimulus’ that did nothing but enrich their political cronies, who have made an art out of ‘digitizing’ money that doesn’t exist now raging about ‘political terrorists’ and fiscal responsibility merely because someone finally said no, we’re not going to raise the amount of your credit line again unless we can negotiate over some things we want to happen.
This president has a long history of governing by diktat and executive order, including his de facto imposition of the Dream Act congress rejected three times and modifications to ObamaCare (the name ‘Affordable Care Act’ is an unintended joke on the country). Both of these acts are illegal under U.S. law along with other actions by this president.
I’d remind everyone exactly why ObamaCare is the train wreck it is – because this president, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Pelosi shoved it through with Republicans literally locked out of the room and without the normal negotiations and deliberations with the Senate. They did it because Republican Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts and would have been a vote not to end debate, holding ObamaCare up indefinitely. So they pushed the bill through with even reading it Now they, or rather the American people are stuck with this mess. President Obama and the Democrats own it.
So all in all, it’s high time an attempt was made to have this president do something he’s consistently refused to do – negotiate with Republicans. Whether the House Republican leadership will hold steady is, of course, another matter. If they don’t, if they cave, I doubt the GOP will survive as a party.
The Glittering Eye:Yes, the federal government will shut down. Default is also possible. No, I do not approve of it. I think it’s an abrogation of responsibility on the part of our elected leaders and there’s plenty of blame to spread around. Refusing to fund the PPACA was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Whatever Congressional Republicans’ views of the program, shutting down the federal government to poke a thumb in the eye of the Senate Democrats and the president is just irresponsible.
However, the Senate Democrats are irresponsible, too, in refusing to deal with the legislation passed by the House and the president has been decidedly unhelpful by refusing outright to negotiate with House Republicans. Sometimes I fear for the republic.
Bookworm Room: No, there won’t be a government shutdown, because Republicans always blink. And without regard to the shutdown, I disapprove of Republican’s blinking problem. As for the shutdown itself, I think it would be a useful exercise for all Americans to see what happens if the federal government is reduced to its essential services. It will shake people up, one way or another.
I was reminded of a mini-government shutdown just today when I found myself at San Francisco’s beautiful Marina and Chrissy Fields. Looking out at the Bay and at Alcatraz, I was truly saddened when I thought that the sequester means that, for the first time in 25 or so years, there won’t be a Fleet Week event in San Francisco. When the sequester hit, the Pentagon didn’t trim waste (and there’s lots of waste in our wonderful military). Instead, it immediately punished the American people. The Pentagon is, after all, first and foremost a bureaucracy. The loss isn’t just emotional, it’s financial. Fleet Week is a very profitable weekend for the towns that host it. In addition to sailors and Marines, Fleet Week brings in about 100,000 tourists and their money. Nevertheless, the important thing to remember is that, in the grand scheme of things, life goes on. A government service was cut and it’s no biggie.
Well, there you have it.
*If you look at the fact that the stock market is up today, the shutdown appears to be no biggie to them! Charles Payne said today on Cavuto that perhaps the shutdown will show us that we don’t need nearly as many government workers and non-essential services that we now have. It could actually backfire on the big-government Progressives now in power?!?
Some of the Government Shuts Down
The federal government will officially shut down after Congress failed to reach an agreement on a short-term resolution to fund the government by midnight Monday, when the current funding resolution expired. Harry Reid and the Senate rejected the House’s compromise proposal to avoid a shutdown again, just hours before the deadline.
The House of Representatives led by Republicans made a final offer to fully fund the entire government with a light lift compromise to delay just a couple provisions within ObamaCare that most Americans do not want. And the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, held out his hand again to sit down and negotiate with both the Senate and/or the President at Midnight last night; but neither stood-up to do their job and negotiate.
Instead, President Obama's response was no compromise and no negotiation followed by giving the most divisive and un-presidential speech I have ever heard in my lifetime! And Harry Reid continues to vilify anyone who stood up for their and their constituents' convictions. Shame on both of them! Ronald Reagan would have been on the phone with all parties last night and would have averted this shutdown promoting unification instead of causing greater division! Their (Reid and Obama's) lack of interest in negotiating really gives legs to the view that this battle is only a symptom of a much larger fight, The Battle Between Good and Evil.
And then there is always the thought that this shutdown is exactly what Obama and his cronies wanted all along to divert attention from the problems and disastrous rollout of ObamaCare that began today.
You be the judge…
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