“So that’s it, this whole stupid ordeal is over. The Republicans shut down the government and took the world the brink of a widespread depression, for what, exactly? To stop a Republican plan to expand access to private health insurance marketplaces and deny millions of people access to affordable health care. That’s it. They failed in that goal, and in other stand-in goals along the way that they tried to tag in, including (1) cutting earned benefits programs for the middle class and poor and (2) reducing access to birth control under the private insurance exchanges. Instead they came away with…basically nothing. For this they inflicted $24 billion in economic damage on the country whose interests they allegedly represent. Yes, most federal workers will get back pay in this deal, so for some, it amounts to a stressful, but ultimately paid vacation.
But what about others who don’t have the safety of back pay? What about private federal contractors? What about suppliers and vendors counting on orders from the federal government? What about private businesses counting on traffic to shuttered national parks? What about small business owners in time sensitive businesses like Capt. Keith Colburn, stuck waiting on the docks for two weeks while Republicans held up the permits he needs to do his work? What about the PhD candidates at McMurdo Station, who spent years working up to their capstone research on location in Antarctica, only to have the Republicans cancel science for the 2013 season because they don’t like health insurance. All these people aren’t getting back pay, the Republicans deliberately, specifically, intentionally hurt these Americans, for no real purpose other than because they were mad that some of the wrong people might have slight better lives through access to affordable health care, because they can, and because they don’t like the President.
This episode should drive a stake in the heart of the Republican party. They have proven themselves unfit stewards of power, incapable and uninterested in running the country on even a minimally competent level. These people are dangerously incompetent, and really, they are demonstrably too stupid and reckless to be trusted with a sharp steak knife, much less the reigns of power in the most powerful country in the world. Maybe treason is too strong, but this episode was everything but.”
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