Of course some media outlets and people are all, "Woohoo, the shutdown is over!" and you know that Barry is patting himself on the back all smug while chattin' on a conference call with Jay-Z and Bill Maher. Meanwhile, I'm waking up trying to convince my two year old that yes he wants pancakes for breakfast, and no he cannot have orange juice and trying to not to call up my congressional "representatives" (it's awesome how much the retiring senator from my district is being criticized on his facebook page for voting yes) and tell them that they're the biggest idiots ever for going with it.(Here are the links if you want to see how your House Rep voted, and to see if your Senator was one of the 18 who voted against the legislation). So, if you saw the facebook page (seriously, if you haven't like it already, go like it, it's where the Snark is when I can't blog) you know what's coming in today's blog -- lessons we should have learned from the shutdown. So while your people on the Hill are probably nursing some hangovers from last night's parties (please, you know they were all out at a fundraiser or cocktail party or some ritzy bar to celebrate or commiserate), let's get down to the nitty gritty according to, well, me (how does one say me in Chinese?)
- This isn't a long term solution. In fact, this is far from a long term solution. Prepare for another shutdown come January because that's how long this snippet of legislation is good through. The government is funded through 15 January, the treasury will reach its limit 07 February. And be prepared for a bigger, dirtier fight as next year is a midterm year and those with seats up for grabs will hopefully have a change of heart and actually listen to their constituents or risk losing their seat. The race is already on in certain areas (Mitch, you know your seat is up for grabs, however I have faith in my fellow Kentuckians will rally and replace you with another Rand), and it'll just get better if the government shuts down again in January. And don't expect an actual budget to be passed, by forcing these continuing resolutions to pass to fund the government, it gives the executive branch the power to keep on scaremongering that we're going to be in a tailspin if something doesn't happen. Until an actual budget is passed and the government learns how to be fiscally responsible things won't get better -- and I don't expect an actual budget to pass until Barry is out of office (remember, an actual budget hasn't been passed since 2009, and still in 2010 the Democrats held the majority in both houses and held the White House so there was no reason why they shouldn't have passed a budget -- yes I do have my conspiracies, but we'll say those for later).
- Funding piece by piece might have been genius. It started to show what actually needed to be funded by the government and what should switch to privatized funding. I've been a fan of privatizing PBS, NPR, etc for a while now -- in fact they've even stated that most of their funding comes from private funding, so if that's the case, they shouldn't have a problem fully being privatized or adjusting their budgets in order to make do without government funding. Head start should be funded by the state or fully private funding. I know that sounds horrible, but having the federal government fund head start programs seems pretty pointless to me. I did do preschool but I just remember painting, coloring, singing songs and learning the ABCs and how to count to like ten. Now we have head start and kindergarten classes essentially structured like a grade school class. Great, but is it necessary? For me, the only real positive to a head start is socialization for the kiddos. And now it's become such a huge thing that states have lotteries to get their kids in, really? Awesome, let's have parents stress out about that too. Bottom line, it's a state issue of how they want to handle it, not the government (and seriously, after Michelle's meddling with school lunches and that epic failure, should we really let the federal government continue to meddle with funding our public schools?). I've already stated that we can ditch Homeland Security, that will open up a ton of funding for the government. The fact is, the American people need to realize that the federal government cannot and should not fund everything and anything just because you think you have a right to it (I think I have the right to drive a Range Rover and wear nothing but Lilly, but it doesn't mean that it's going to happen because we cannot afford that). Oh and food stamps and WIC need to be state funded, start soliciting monies from the formula companies, the big food companies, and you know what, offer incentives to your farmers.
- We are no longer the most powerful nation to be feared by the world. We are beggars y'all. It might be time to go ahead and purchase a Rosetta Stone, Chinese Edition and get cracking. From what I remember from my economics classes, it's good for the country to be in some debt, but this much debt and then ask for more? Yeah, no. The longer people in the nation are ok with the freeloaders being freeloaders and not demanding accountability and reform, we'll never get back to being great because we'll be at the mercy of whomever we're borrowing money from.
- Our 80, 90 year old vets have more guts to stand up and fight against the Administration and Congress than those who supposedly represent us. At what point will more Americans take a cue from our Greatest Generation? During WWII, Americans didn't rely on the government for everything -- they grew their own food, lived within their means, rationed what needed to be rationed and chugged along. Here we are, over sixty years later complaining that we can't get free fatty cakes with every meal, that we don't have the latest designer jeans, that we're not getting our free phones and that everyone should have healthcare even though it's not financially feasible, even though it's called the Affordable Care Act. Clearly for a lot of Americans, personal responsibility has gone out the window. Of course, for some people in power they want everyone to rely on the government. Me? I think big government is a recipe for disaster.
There are other things that should have been learned, but unfortunately B is going mad so I need to take care of that. I'll leave you with this though, make fun of the Tea Party, the Libertarians and any other conservative that doesn't trust either political party and/or the government these days all you want, but honestly, I'm thinking that sportin' a tinfoil hat isn't such a bad thing.
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