GOP To Tempt Fate Over Debt Ceiling

As you probably know by now, if you follow politics at all, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives has passed a fraudulent continuing resolution to fund the government through December. I say it's fraudulent because it completely defunds the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which means there's absolutely no way it could ever pass the Senate or be signed by the president.

The Republicans seem to think this ridiculous game they are playing with the economy and our government will win them the support of the people of this country. It won't. As you can see from the charts above (made from information gathered in exit polls by CBS News on election day in 2012), their action does please many of their own supporters -- those who voted for them in 2012. But they may have forgotten that although they kept control of the House in that election (thanks to some very effective gerrymandering), the GOP House candidates actually got more than a million votes less than the House candidates of the Democrats -- so they are trying to appeal to a minority of voters nationwide.

They will probably back down on the current budget resolution. In fact, I think they may be planning on that. Because they are already making plans to again try to defund Obamacare next month, when the debt ceiling will need to be raised again. And they are really going to tempt fate (and American voters) at that time, by piling on a whole list of GOP wishes (things the teabaggers will like, but most Americans won't) -- things like more off-shore drilling, tax reform (more cuts for the rich & corporations), cuts to Social Security & Medicare, approval of the Keystone pipeline, and a roll-back of environmental regulations on coal-fired energy plants & other industries.

I don't know how they expect to get the Senate and the White House to accept such a ridiculous list of things, when just defunding Obamacare would be enough to get their proposal thrown in the trash. Maybe they think if they throw everything at the wall, something will stick. personally, I just think they're going to anger voters with all of this, because the huge majority do not want the government shut down -- not even for a short time.

But if that's what they want to do, then why stop them? It won't pass, and it'll give the Democrats a lot to remind the voters of in the months leading up to the election next year. And if they make the voters mad enough, we just might see a big turnout for an off-year election -- which would be disastrous for the GOP (who would like to restrict voting to only white male right-wingers).

Will they shut down the government, either this month or next. I think there's a good chance they will -- at least for a short period of time (until they figure out how badly they are hurting themselves with voters). Either way, we won't have long to wait to see how stupid the GOP wants to be this time -- because time is running out, both on the continuing resolution to fund the government and the need to raise the debt ceiling.