Politics win and the American people lose

The main stream media is having a field day blaming house Republicans for the inability of the federal government to get anything done.  This includes passing a budget resolution to fund the government. There is a continuing story line that seems to imply that the Democrats are more than willing to compromise but the Republicans will have none of it.

The President himself said recently in a NPR interview, “From the start I have said I am happy to talk to republicans about any issue”. Unfortunately when ask by the interviewer what he might be able to offer Republicans to forge a deal, our President responded, “what can I offer?....I shouldn’t have to offer anything”.

And there we have the Democrats idea of negotiations. “I shouldn’t have to offer anything”. In other words, there will be NO negotiations. To Mr. Obama the minority party and the millions of citizens they represent have no rights, have no voice, he won the election, that settles it, get over it.

But, as our supposed constitutional scholar President should know, that is not how it should work.  That is not how it has worked in the past and that is not how our founding fathers intended it to work - ever. The government was designed with separate branches and separate houses of Congress to keep the majority from steam rolling the over the minority. The rules were laid out to give the minority some power to affect the outcome of votes, to give the people the minority party represents some voice. Whether your party won the election or not your opinion as an American citizen is just as important as any other citizen

The Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obama-care, yes they ARE all the same) was pushed through with no input from Republicans.  This was at a time when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress AND the White House. A large minority or maybe even a majority of Americans see this bill as detrimental to the country, our economy and an attack on individual liberty. After the last election, we sent our elected officials to Washington with the instructions to attempt to do something about it.

The minority party in Congress has very limited tools to attempt to carry out the mandate that we elected them to carry forward.  Republicans will never be able to move a bill to the floor in the Senate, so the Republican controlled House is using the Budget Bill to attempt to force some concessions on the ACA. That is how the system works and all that is necessary is for the Democrats to come to the table and negotiate.

You would think that a bill like the ACA, that a majority of democrats have referred to as, “a train wreck” and the head of the AFL-CIO has said will, “wreck the middle class as we know it”, could use some work.

But in the recent words of a senior White House official, “we are winning, it doesn’t really matter to us how long the shut down last”.

Its fine for the Democrats to refuse to negotiate to score political points at the cost to the American citizen but let’s stop acting like it is all House Republican’s fault that the government is shut down.  The attitude of “I should not have to offer anything” is not how a real leader would begin to negotiate a settlement.

But then we don’t have a real leader with this President do we?