Pay-Go?

The Republican held House has a decision to make. It can say that Obamacare is not as bad as House Republicans now claim, pay to have it fixed as they have done in the past, or take some of the wealth of a future generation and pay for Obamacare.

Of course there is always the option of revolution. Like the Tea Party of old, the new Tea Party knows revolutions.

You take the junk out of the holds of the ships and throw it into the sea.

Of course those “holds” are now in the ships of past honor residing in the House, the fear now in Republicans who don’t want to pay for it, and the interest in the wealth that future generations hold.

The domains of war, which let’s face it that is what a revolution really needs, are honor, fear and interest.

What I am trying to say, that is just something to be “highlighted”   🙂

House panel delays meeting on GOP budget plan, leaders struggling to gather votes

House Republicans plan to vote Tuesday night on a revised budget proposal that would end the partial government shutdown, raise the debt ceiling and, in a challenge to Democrats, force government officials from President Obama on down to obtain health insurance through ObamaCare.

So the House Republicans want to expand Obamacare to include everyone. What a novel idea!

“To say, \’absolutely categorically not, we will not consider what the Republicans in the House of Representatives are doing,\’ in my view, is piling on,\” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on the Senate floor, as Democrats lined up against the House plan. \”Let\’s sit down and work this out.”

“Piling on”? I am not sure what John McCain is saying, but it does seem to me that the House Republicans are adding so much to the legislature in the process that it may make the bill meaningless, at least strategically, in its final version.

Or at least meaningless in that it doesn’t include any strategy to defeat the Democrats in the House.

Then again, maybe the Wingnuts in the House Republican leadership are grasping for anything to show to the people, ( the people who may run the next Republican Wingnut inline to replace non-Tea Party Rebulicans in their district) that they are still are a Wingnut (the emphasis should be on “nut”) and that the nutty Republican Party doesn’t need to replace those now in the House? 

What I am sure of is that McCain knows that adding more structure to Obamacare (in the form of the leaders of the U.S.A.) is not the way to defeat it.

Good luck with that Republican House leaders.

via House panel delays meeting on GOP budget plan, leaders struggling to gather votes | Fox News.

Both sides grope for solutions to shutdown, debt ceiling

President Obama emphasized the stakes at an event at a construction company in Rockville, Md., Thursday, saying Washington’s inability to deal with the looming debt ceiling would be worse than the government shutdown

Tactically, Obama got it right when he went right for the workspace of both work and home.

The solution to this problem is simple.

What Obamacare really needs is help. If the Republicans manage to defund Obamacare, it will probably bring it down, but that is not really that much of a big deal for the POTUS. There is a possibility Obamacare may fail anyway. Defunding Obamacare (as the “way” to win in the Republican strategy) probably only makes a small difference in its chances of failure.

What Obama really needs is help from the few remaining patriots in the leadership of the Republican Party. With help from these true patriots (not really sure there are any left in Congress), Obama can insure the healthcare program for all the people of the U.S.A. doesn’t fail.

Seems like a worthy cause that would do, not only enough to make people not only feel good, but be satisfied in being a part of a job well done.

via Both sides grope for solutions to shutdown, debt ceiling.

Senate rejects latest House proposal as federal government grinds to a halt

President Obama, declaring that his signature health-care law is “here to stay,” urged House Republicans on Tuesday to stop trying to derail it and instead “reopen the government” following a shutdown that took effect at midnight.

If the shutting-down of the U.S. government was a game, then Obama and the Democratic Party wins. It comes down to whose “cheap trick” was the best in the strategy of the game.

The House Republican’s “cheap trick” was to defund Obamacare, or they would shut-down the government. Their plan was to start with defunding the whole program, and if that didn’t work, at least get some little token for their effort.

I am sure the Republicans knew how fragile Obamacare is, and defunding any part of Obamacare would pretty much assure a failure down the line.

And there is no doubt that Obamacare is fragile, at least as it is being implemented. Obama has had to get help from business in ways that would only make any good Republican giggle. The problem with the Republican strategy: they had no concept of their strategy failing.

Without the concept of failure (the Government would actually shutdown), they had no backup plan for keeping the government actually running, like the House Democrats did when the Democratic majority in the House last shut the government down.

It was different seventeen years ago when the government was last shut down. There was no animosity towards the POTUS, nor against the Senate, because the economy was running pretty good, and the Republicans could relate to the POTUS, if they actually didn’t like him.

Today, House Republicans don’t relate to this POTUS, nor do most actually like him or even know him. You really need to be able to relate to someone before you know someone.

So now the government is  shutting down, and the Republicans in the House past about 3 bills (which the President and Democrats voted for or signed) that will help keep things moving if the government actually shuts down.

I think the House Strategy, if this was a game, failed because those who have control of the Republican Party actually wanted to shut the government down, in the worst way possible, and they did.

I guess the Democrats will just have to see if their strategy gives them enough power to “win”, as the government shuts down.

via Senate rejects latest House proposal as federal government grinds to a halt – The Washington Post.

“The Unwinding”™ by George Packer

It was only after Walton’s death, Mr. Packer says, “that the country began to understand what his company had done.” He writes: “Over the years, America had become more like Walmart. It had gotten cheap. Prices were lower, and wages were lower. There were fewer union factory jobs, and more part-time jobs as store greeters.” He adds: “The hollowing out of the heartland was good for the company’s bottom line.”

It was after watching part of this video and much of the Saturday debate in the House, on the CR to send back to the Senate and shut down the government, that I came to the conclusion that “America 3” (Our deeply rooted orientation toward personal and economic freedom will allow us to dismantle America 2.0 and build a better, freer, and more prosperous America 3.0 in its place.) isn’t going to happen.

Instead, America, as Mr. Packer says, has been “unwinding” and it is not going to transition into a better, freer, and more prosperous America 3.0 (although it could become all those things), but, instead of transitioning, it is about to rewind into something completely else.

And that “something” means that  America is never going to be the same.

On the House floor, one of the themes of the Republicans has been the tale of what corporations are doing to the American worker because of Obamacare. 

According to the House Republicans, corporations are no longer supporting their workforces.

The House Republicans say that businesses are throwing away healthcare plans, turning full time employees into a bunch of temporaries, moving more jobs overseas, and (although I didn’t hear this on the House floor) taking healthcare on the cheap by paying fines and scrapping healthcare for their workers all together.

Really? Most businesses in America has the worker by the short-hairs, do they really want to keep twisting.

I mean, I believe the House Republicans are truthful when they say that they have heard from both small and large businesses and worker who are terrorized by the thought that corporate America is abandoning them, but have they heard from the American worker–the men and women who are trying to keep their families together, as their wages stagnate and those at the top get more wealthy?

The King of England miscalculated the amount of control he had over his American subjects. It could be the House Republicans are miscalculating also. The only ones that believes our healthcare system isn’t broken are those who are supplying the money to the Republican Party, and it is the Republican Party who is refusing to form any kind of a fix to the Obamacare that will help small businesses and the American worker.

Ironically, it turns out the Republican Party has become the tool for revolution in America and it’s rewinding into something completely else.

The House Republicans better hope that Obama blinks, unless they really want another American Revolution and (unlike a peaceful transition) the violence that goes along with most unwindings of nations through revolutions.

via ‘The Unwinding,’ by George Packer – NYTimes.com.