Government shutdown scare, round 263 of the year

It seems as if the House Republicans were told that they are in charge of the Frequent Failure to Fund Program.  Maybe they all swore an oath to only serve part of the country.  Whatever it is, something is screwy in the House.  “The House on Wednesday failed to pass legislation to keep the government funded past next week, a major defeat for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who was banking on having the votes for a package that tied emergency disaster aid to spending cuts.”  I remember writing in April about looming government shutdown over lack of funding, and then writing again in June and July as the same saga played out.  Here we are again.

But this time, it’s not just about a threatened shutdown.  Like last time, with debt ceiling scares, the Republicans are going hell bent to leather; this time it’s about threatening to cut funding for emergency relief programs.  There are some very scary things about FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) which will be revealed in due time, but that is not the beef of the Republican argument.  They just don’t want to provide for those unlucky enough to live in an area where two hurricanes within a week followed on the heels of an earthquake.

Americans need no reminding that the federal government is inefficient.  “The House and Senate are scheduled to leave town on Friday for a week-long recess; unless that changes, they only have two days left to figure out a way forward.”  The Republicans spent the week playing politics with emergency relief, just in time to skip town.  ” The failed vote was not only an embarrassment for Republican leaders, who ended up nowhere near the 218 votes they needed to pass the bill, but it also eats into the small window of time left to avert a government shutdown.”

You may remember the exciting times earlier this summer, when a special committee was created to do something about the debt.  Some of our representatives remember this summer, and see the idiocy in having this same discussion again.

” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the easiest way to remedy the situation would be to take disaster aid completely out of the continuing resolution and pass the Senate’s standalone aid bill. But one option that remains unacceptable to Democrats would be to cut funding levels for disaster aid to appease conservative Republicans, especially since those funding levels had already been agreed upon during debt talks this summer.  ‘We’re not going to negotiate something in July and then let people renege in September and say never mind.  Absolutely not.'”