We are now entering the final hours before the government shutdown, and by all accounts little can be done to make Republicans understand the cliff they are standing on has no soft landing for them once they jump and take the nation with them.
Unless there is a last-minute deal, and at this time that would take nothing short of a miracle, the U.S. government will shut down at midnight. Such an action will immediately furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Meanwhile the vast majority of public and private polling shows that Speaker Boehner’s House Republicans will get blamed for the stalemate. What is most painful, I am sure for Boehner and his top aides, its that they know it. The speaker privately warned his leadership team that this shutdown could cost him his majority. Even so he seems unable to rein in the wing-nuts who are in control of the House. His 17-seat majority is not a sure thing once the fall-out from this shutdown hits every morning paper, news show, and water bubbler conversation.
2014 will not be the election cycle that Republicans had hoped for just a few months ago. If there is a government shutdown, and it now seems inevitable, the GOP will not escape the voter’s wrath for taking the nation off the cliff with their irresponsible actions, and petty partisanship.
So what is the best way to deal with House Republicans who act like the school house bullies? It surely is not to cave in and let the bullies win. It is not to allow them a victory now so they can only use the same tactics again and act like terrorists when wanting their way over national policy.
No the best way to move forward comes from a top Democratic official who made it quite clear that it is “time to punch the bully in his nose.”
Everyone with any common sense, or civics, knows the way this theatre of the absurd is playing out in Washington must be stopped, and the bullies who are causing the problems need to be stomped down into a place they can no longer cause others harm. In this case the House GOP needs to meet stiff resistance from President Obama and the national Democrats.
In 2014 the voters will finish the job of stopping bullies by removing the Republicans as majority party in the House.
There is no soft landing once you jump off the cliff.
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