Opinion: Where the Trouble Comes From in this Shutdown

I almost never print politically themed postings, but I know that here in NYC right now they are starting to cut off old bedridden people from Meals on Wheels and all sorts of other things like that are happening across the nation.

This is the only comment I am going to print for some time about all of this

From the Christian Science Monitor

Opinion

The tea party created an existential threat to America, not Obamacare

By pretending that the Affordable Care Act poses such an existential risk to the republic that it merits dragging our national character through the mud of a government shutdown, tea party Republicans are belittling the very real crises America soon may face.

By Justin Holbrook / October 1, 2013

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Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas departs the Senate floor Sept. 30 after a late-night vote rejected budget legislation from the House that would have undermined the Affordable Care Act. Op-ed contributor Justin Holbrook writes: Tea party Republicans 'should remember that their first loyalty is not to defeating the Affordable Care Act or winning the next election. Their first loyalty is to the republic.'

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

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Falls Church, Va.

Let me make sure I understand. The tea party Republicans in the House and Senate have determined that the Affordable Care Act is so reprehensible, so pernicious, and so destructive of American liberties that it poses an existential risk to the republic.

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That’s the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from their most recent – and now disturbingly familiar – round of legislative warfare, which has now ended in a government shutdown. Why? Because tea party Republicans have been wielding nearly every existential weapon in their arsenal to blast the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) into legislative oblivion.

Shutting down the government. Threatening the full faith and credit of the United States. Anything it takes to force congressional Democrats and President Obama into white flag waving submission. Clearly for them, a law like this must be stopped at all costs. If it cannot be defeated initially, it must be stopped judicially. If the Supreme Court upholds it, Congress must repeal, derail, or defund it. This is not just a bad law – it is an evil one.

The problem is, it isn’t.

QUIZ: How much do you know about bipartisanship?

Certainly not to the majority of Democrats. And not for common-sense Republicans like me.
Common-sense Republicans understand that a law that forces Americans to opt in and pay for health-care insurance or opt out and pay a federal tax might simply be a bad law. It might skew market forces, misalign our national spending priorities, and even dress up an unconstitutional encroachment on our individual liberties in the guise of a federal tax. For common sense Republicans, none of this is good, and some of it is very bad.

But it’s not an existential threat that deserves an existential response.

Freedom of religion, speech, the press. The right to vote, to bear arms, to assemble. These are fundamental to our republic. While reasonable people might disagree over the expression, implementation, and restriction of these freedoms, no one who shares our constitutional values can disagree with their existence. If these freedoms are taken away – not simply re-scoped or modified by representatives who, by the way, are popularly elected – we would have an existential crisis.
That would be a crisis that would merit shutting the government down and refusing to raise the debt ceiling. That would deserve an existential response. But not this.

By pretending that the Affordable Care Act poses such an existential risk to the republic that it merits dragging our national character through the mud of shutdown and the threat of default, tea party Republicans are belittling the very real crises America soon may face.