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Star Tribune: The House GOP's clueless shutdown crusade
The talking-points memo had clearly gone out to Republican members of Congress who came before TV news cameras during this week’s late-night, last-ditch budget maneuvers.
As the federal government careened toward the partial shutdown that began Tuesday morning, GOP representatives one after the other repeated the same two arguments: that their party’s stop-Obamacare-at-any-cost budget strategy reflects the “will of the people,” and that Democrats and President Obama simply aren’t willing to compromise.
The numbers tell a different, more reality-based story, which is why the natural tendency to blame both sides for the budget debacle should be checked as the shutdown and its potentially harmful economic consequences play out. “This is not a ‘pox on both your houses’ moment,” said Michael Linden, a federal budget expert with the Center for American Progress.
In one of the most recent surveys about the shutdown, the respected Morning Consult National Healthcare Tracking Poll found that just 33 percent of voters questioned from Sept. 25-28 agreed that lawmakers should delay, defund or repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
As the federal government careened toward the partial shutdown that began Tuesday morning, GOP representatives one after the other repeated the same two arguments: that their party’s stop-Obamacare-at-any-cost budget strategy reflects the “will of the people,” and that Democrats and President Obama simply aren’t willing to compromise.
The numbers tell a different, more reality-based story, which is why the natural tendency to blame both sides for the budget debacle should be checked as the shutdown and its potentially harmful economic consequences play out. “This is not a ‘pox on both your houses’ moment,” said Michael Linden, a federal budget expert with the Center for American Progress.
In one of the most recent surveys about the shutdown, the respected Morning Consult National Healthcare Tracking Poll found that just 33 percent of voters questioned from Sept. 25-28 agreed that lawmakers should delay, defund or repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
More at: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/226052841.html
I added the emphasis to the 1st sentence/3rd para.
