Shutdown Showdown - the President speaks

Source:  Public Domain

President Obama is speaking at a press conference this afternoon even as I write this. What is the subject?  What else, the shutdown showdown we presently are embroiled in in this country.   What else is there to talk about today?

The president is speaking quietly, rationally and with great common sense.  He is willing to sit down and talk to John Boehner and discuss, yes, the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, when the government shutdown ends and the debt ceiling is raised.  President Obama will not negotiate with a gun held to the heads of the American people and the government.  This is a sane, rational and common sense attitude toward this stalemate.

Congress has a duty and responsibility to do their jobs and open the government and raise the debt ceiling and pay our country's bills, according to President Obama.  But, he will not allow nor support "hostage taking" as a method of re-opening the government.   He said he won't allow this method of governing to become the new normal for America.

And, I have to agree with him.  Why must we lurch from crisis to crisis governing in this country?  Why can't the Republican party behave as mature adults as their way of governing?  Why is the Republican party behaving as "terrorists?"  

I formally worked for the Department of Defense as a teacher overseas teaching the children of our servicemen stationed in Germany.  I know how the federal government is supposed to work.  Today, none of the teachers overseas are being paid because the government is closed down.  They are expected to continue to do their jobs with no pay while this shutdown showdown continues for a second week.  

When I worked in Germany as a teacher, Reagan was President and we had to wait it out to the last hour for congress to vote for our pay to continue.  But, the difference then is congress DID IT'S JOB.  Reagan and O'Neil, the Speaker of the House then, knew how to talk to one another and negotiate the budget for the next year. (And the debt ceiling, too)

And to work for the DOD, I had to take an oath all government workers and military soldiers take, " . . . to defend the Constitution of the United States from enemies foreign and domestic."  Yes, I took that oath seriously.  And the Republican congressmen/women are our "domestic enemies" today.  They are the "terrorists", taking us hostage who are our enemies today.  We are sabotaging ourselves, our economy, our government and our country today because of "domestic enemies."

Today, the Republican party is leading us as rabid dogs, insanely and foaming at the mouth, and not knowing which way to turn or what to do when they haven't won the presidential election in 2012 and they can't have their way today.

This is the third article I have written on this shutdown showdown.  When are the Republicans going to take the American people's opinions and concerns about the government shutdown seriously and the necessity of re-opening the government sooner rather than later?  




Note:  the phrase "shutdown showdown" comes from CNN and other news programs who have coined the phrase.


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