{"id":5869,"date":"2011-09-17T00:05:27","date_gmt":"2011-09-17T07:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5869"},"modified":"2011-09-17T00:05:27","modified_gmt":"2011-09-17T07:05:27","slug":"republican-terrorists-threaten-government-shutdown-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/17\/republican-terrorists-threaten-government-shutdown-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican terrorists threaten government shutdown again!"},"content":{"rendered":"

One might think that blackmailing America over the debt ceiling was bad enough, but it appears that is not the end of Republican economic terrorism.  Government shutdown is back on their agenda again.  Now, let someone threaten subsidies for Big Oil, and Republicans will throw a hissy fit, but unless we defund a loan guarantee program to help Main Street Americans buy more fuel efficient cars, Republicans will shut the government down.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"17Government-Shutdown\"Senate Republicans broke ranks this week, allowing Democrats to pass a nearly $7 billion bill to shore up federal disaster relief and setting up a battle with the House and even the prospect of a government shutdown.<\/p>\n

Between hurricanes, floods, wildfires, blizzards, tornadoes, and a rare East Coast earthquake, the US has declared disaster areas in all but two states this year alone, and the funds to sustain recovery efforts are running out.<\/p>\n

In past years, Congress would have dubbed such disasters an emergency \u2013 a label that exempts spending from budgetary constraints \u2013 and paid for it on credit. But the GOP takeover of the House in 2011 and an ongoing tea party insurgency have sharpened partisan differences even on an issue as traditionally bipartisan as disaster relief.<\/p>\n

House Republicans are proposing $3.7 billion in disaster aid, with the first $1 billion to be offset by cutting a loan guarantee program for more fuel-efficient cars<\/strong>. Democrats oppose both the strategy of requiring offsets for emergency disaster relief \u2013 a standard they say that Republicans did not apply to funding wars in Iraq or Afghanistan \u2013 and the choice of an alternative energy program to take the hit.<\/p>\n

The measure now faces a full House vote next week, as part of an interim spending bill to fund government for the 2012 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1<\/strong>. Without this continuing resolution, the government would be forced to shut down<\/font><\/strong>… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Christian Science Monitor<\/a>><\/p>\n

Republicans will win this one.  A $1 billion program is not a big enough issue to risk letting Republicans force a government shutdown.  There is nothing Democrats can do to stop the measure in the House.  But Democrats in the Senate should make it a floor fight, just to expose the vile hypocrisy of what Republicans are doing here, and let the American public see who Republicans represent.  Sadly, I fear that the Nevada Leg Hound, Harry Reid,  will hump a few GOP legs, whining for some minor concession, before he puts his tail between his legs, rolls over and plays dead.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One might think that blackmailing America over the debt ceiling was bad enough, but it appears that is not the end of Republican economic terrorism.  Government shutdown is back on their agenda again.  Now, let someone threaten subsidies for Big Oil, and Republicans will throw a hissy fit, but unless we defund a loan guarantee […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}