Today is the deadline day for the budget. No one has blinked yet. The house passed a four week stop gap budget last night and shipped it over to the Senate where things become much more difficult.
One of the things I’ll give to the Democrats is that they stay the party line no matter how ridiculous the line is. Not so with the Republicans. Inside their party, they fight with one another, so much so that more often than not, nothing gets done. It drives me out of my mind. Example, tonight Rand Paul was a guest on Fox where he let us know that he will not support the stop gap budget. Why, because he is tired of the Government spending beyond their means. Who would disagree with that? Not me, that’s for sure. The trouble is, Mr. Paul, whom I like, has been a senator now for many years and what has he done about this? Nothing, except to put on a big show every time a big important vote comes before him. In this case he is going to stand on his beliefs even at the demise of the military funding. He knows damn well that his non-vote will have zero impact on any change. If he wants to change things he needs to actually work on it and get it done. Grand-standing a few times a year obviously isn’t getting anything done and makes him no better than the Left. All talk; no action.
John McCain is home fighting cancer and Jeff Flake is, well, a flake. His only goal, on his way out is to get even with the President. Then we have Senator Lindsey Graham, who like Flake is in the get-even mode. Senator Graham’s reason, the President sent him walking when he and his pal on the Left, Durban gave the President a POS proposal on DACA/Immigration. Graham, throughout the years would have us believe he is the champion of the military. Yet, like the Left, he is willing to shut the Government down until such time that the President agrees with him regarding DACA.
In order to pass, the Senate needs 60 YES votes. There are only 51 republicans and three or four of them are grandstanding, again. The Left of course, loves this. Why wouldn’t they? The Republicans look like fools. I believe, or at least hope, that each of them will pay the price come November. Let’s face it, when the President says we need to drain the swamp, that’s not exclusive to the Left. At least I don’t think it is. We have congress people on both sides that have to go if we are ever going to have a Government that works for us.
In my last post I said “my guess is that the Democrats care more about hurting the President than keeping the Government open.” After the recent events “my guess remains and the blame will be on the swamp dwellers made up of both Democrats and those few Republican standouts. Don’t get me wrong, the President will get the blame from the media, that’s a big “duh.” The Swamp however will get the blame from Trump’s supporters including yours truly.
Who gets blamed, Left or Right, I don’t care. What I care about is funding the Government, period. All of these other issues are important, for sure, and they need to be dealt with but not at the expense of the military or even those employees working in the Government. Why should the guy emptying the trash in the Senate offices not get paid? Some Senators on the Right and all the Senators on the Left sure don’t care.
So there you have it, my two cents on this dramatic budget showdown. Everything has to be so hard and so dramatic in Washington, doesn’t it? Maybe after a good night’s sleep cooler minds will prevail. Great, now I’m lying to myself…
