Democrat Government Shutdown Looms Larger

by JASmius



Dems just revel in games of chicken that they never, EVER lose:

According to the Hill, Democrats are intent on forcing Republicans to roll back plans to increase defense spending without a commensurate increase in non-defense programs. They are threatening to block the annual spending bills unless GOP agrees to a budget summit.

Which everybody knows the GOP will give them, at which Republicans will dispense the same empty "fight, fight fight" rhetoric they're dispensing now:

Republicans insist they will not be influenced by Democrats' demands or submit to a budget summit. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, has largely persuaded his party to block the $576 billion defense funding bill, sources told Politico.

Republicans warn that blocking the bills would be tantamount to "political suicide" for the Democrats, according to Politico.

"Democrats once thought it was insanely radical for Republicans to oppose too much spending, but now think it's perfectly reasonable to shut down the government when the spending bills don't spend enough," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement Monday, according to the Hill.

"This is a bad hostage to take," South Dakota Senator John Thune told Politico. "The politics for Republicans on that, if Democrats want to play it that way, is certainly advantageous to us."

Yeah, that's what Republicans always think.  And, to be fair to Senator Thune, that's the way it should work.  It's the way it would work if the media were independent and objective, instead of the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party.

But they're not independent or objective, and the are the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party, and the Dems' government shutdown will be blamed on the GOP, and the Republicans will cave and give the Democrats all the domestic spending increases they want and more, and will even cut defense spending below sequester levels.  Because that's what Republicans do, just as Democrats are doing what they always do: Rule the country, even from the minority.

You can see it in the Dems' audacious retorts:

"We're headed for another shutdown," [Senate Minority Leader "Dirty Harry" (G)]Reid said last week. "They did it once, and they're going to do it again."

Other Democrats have warned of a similar fate.

"If our Republican colleagues want to keep quietly paddling toward a government shutdown, that's their choice," said Maryland-8 Representative Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, earlier this month, according to the Hill.

"The line has to be drawn," Maine [Communist] Senator Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, told Politico. "They're wrong. They're the ones that are following a strategy that's neither fiscally prudent or fully cognizant of the risks to national security."

They know they're going to win, and so do their "Republican colleagues".  It's just a question of when the next episode of "Failure Theater" begins.

But let's not be too hard on our guys and gals.  I'm sure that Thune and Boehner and McConnell and the rest believe every word they're saying.  I'm sure they have no intention of backing down, and haven't in any of these previous futile confrontations.  But when they arrived, and the pressure was exponentially dialed up, and their polling numbers went into freefall....

It's like the conversation between Thor and Nick Fury in Avengers I:

FURY: The war hasn't started yet.  You think you could make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?

THOR: I do not know.  Loki's mind is far afield.  It's not just power he craves, but vengeance...upon me.  There's no pain that would pry this need from him.

FURY: A lot of guys think that....until the pain starts.

THOR: What are you asking me to do?

FURY: I'm asking what are you prepared to do?

Republicans are always ready to do battle with the Democrats....until the pain starts.  Because they are not prepared to do, to endure, what it takes to win.

Until they make that commitment and are willing to follow through on it no matter what it takes, it won't matter if there are 434 Republican U.S. representatives and 99 Republican senators, those two Democrats will still be running the country.

As the defeated Loki wryly quipped....



"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now."