A deal is reached...but will they vote on it?

News organizations are now reporting that a deal has been reached to re-open the US government and to avoid default by the US government on its obligations. This is how CNN is reporting the deal.

According to these reports, the deal will fund the government through January 7 and raise the debt limit until February 7. Which is something, but not exactly a lasting solution to the arguments that have been going on. The Tea Party Republicans who had been holding the government hostage in order to try to defund or reverse the Affordable Care Act were thrown a bone in the form of strengthening verification for those receiving subsidies for their coverage under the ACA, apparently allowing them to claim some sort of victory for their efforts.

Of course, I'll believe all of this when I see it. But, it is also being reported that Ted Cruz, one of the leaders in trying to repeal the ACA, has said he will not attempt any procedural strategies or revisit his filibuster in an attempt to derail votes in the Senate and House, which could, it is said, come as early as tonight. However, Cruz did pledge to continue his campaign against the ACA.

What remains to be seen, if course, if John Boehner allows this plan to come to a vote in the House of Representatives, is how it will affect his Speakership in the House of Representatives. Basically, he has lost a fight that at least the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party was seriously invested in. That wing of the party will not be happy with him. But he has also let this farce go on for much too long, and the moderates in the Republican Party, who have been warning about the dangers of taking the tack Boehner and the Tea Partiers have (shutting down the government and risking default) all along will not be happy with him, either. Both groups could well seek to strip him of his leadership position.

Like I said, I won't trust this deal until it is done, voted on, and the government resumes full operation. And I definitely don't trust the Tea Partiers not to try to pull the same thing in January if no lasting agreement is reached before then. Because, you know, I don't trust that wing of the Republican Party any farther than I can thrown two elephants sitting on a grand piano.

If this had been a real issue, this insistence they have on repealing the ACA, I might not have such a problem with this whole thing. But it really isn't. As I've said before here, the ACA was passed legally after lots of wrangling and some concessions by supporters of the program. It was signed legally by the President of the United States. It was even upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. Additionally, the ACA's opponents have tried somewhere between 40 and 45 times to defund or repeal it. In all those times, they have not been able to muster enough votes to do anything near repeal. And yet, there they stood, stomping their feet like toddlers and obstructing the operation of the government unless they got their way.

That's just childish.

Not that the results have been childish. People's lives have been disrupted. Government workers were put on furlough, losing their pay, or worse, were required to work without pay. And when some worried how they were going to pay their mortgages and other bills, Representative Steve Pearce (R-New Mexico) suggested that they go down to the bank and get a loan to pay their bills. Let me suggest that Pearce, who is a millionaire, is a little out of contact with how the real world works. I suppose Pearce and those like him also didn't care much that the WIC program, which provide nutritional assistance for women, infants, and children who would otherwise have to go without certain basic healthy foods.

I have to admit that this whole episode has left me upset. I don't understand how our system allows a small minority of legislators hold the country hostage in an effort to get what they want. I also don't understand the mindset that has them do this and then some of them threaten that if the President did not knuckle under to their demands and the government went into default, that they would begin impeachment proceedings against him because he wasn't doing his job. This, after the Rules Committee in the House of Representatives changed the rules so that instead of any member being able to bring a vote on reopening the government to a vote on the floor, only the Majority Leader or his designee were allowed to bring the issue to a vote. So much for democracy.

We'll see what happens later today and in the days go come. I'm not monitoring the news right now; I'm sick of hearing about the whole thing. However things go, I'll likely have more to say as events develop.

JUST BY WAY OF A QUICK UPDATE: Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have voted to reopen the government and temporarily raise the debt ceiling. The measure passed the Senate by 81-18, while the House passed the agreement by 285 - 144. Of course, we get to do the whole thing over in January and February. It's more than I expected this morning, however.

The politics of hissy-fits...

Sigh.

I really don't want to write about politics today.

Actually, I don't really want to write about much of anything today. I've got horrible allergies, and for me that means that I feel like someone hit me in the middle of the face with a baseball bat. Well, as a matter of full disclosure, I've never actually been hit in the face with a baseball bat, so I can only imagine what it feels like. I have, however, been hit in the head with a baseball bat, and so I know how much that hurt. Extrapolating from that, I can imagine what it would feel like to get hit in the face. Also, my throat is sore.

However...

I have to say that I am very, very, very disappointed in the Tea Party Republicans and those who are so afraid of them in Congress that they went along with this stupid coupling of funding the government with defunding the Affordable Care Act. I'm disappointed that they would do this in the first place, and I'm even more disappointed that they are turning around and trying to blame the President and the Democrats for being the actual culprits in the government shutdown/slowdown/whatever you want to call it.

The Republicans are the ones who linked the two - the ACA and funding the government - in legislation. No one forced them to do that. They aren't willing to compromise, yet they turn around and blame the President and his party for not compromising. Which, of course, in the minds of the Tea Partiers, means nothing less than having Obama and the Democrats kneeling down and knuckling under and giving the obstructionists in the Republican party their way.

And, make no mistake, I'm not blaming all of the Republican Party for this, or even all the Republicans in positions of importance. There have been those in the party who have been trying to tell the Tea Partiers, the obstructionists, that they are not doing anything good for their country. But this small group (some estimates say that there are only 35 House members who are really dedicated to this course of action) will not listen, and are perfectly happy to hold the entire nation hostage in an attempt to force their agenda on a nation that clearly does not want it.

The thing is, the ACA was passed lawfully. It was signed into law by the President. It was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The Tea Party wing of the Republican party has tried somewhere between 40 and 45 times to defund or repeal the ACA and has not had the votes to do so any of those times. Yet they persist in their course. This says to me one thing: Their real aim is to be dictators and force their ideology on a country that does not want it.

This is not a course of action that comports with the values that the United States was founded upon.

Honestly, at this point, I can only conclude that the people who have pushed this course of action, Ted Cruz at the head of them, are acting like a bunch of five-year-olds who are convinced that if they just throw enough of a hissy fit, their parents will give them their way just to shut them up. I saw this sort of behavior on a more or less constant basis when I worked in retail. The kid would be screaming and crying and stomping their feet and, in order to get them to quiet down and stop being so embarrassing, their parent would give in and buy them the toy or the candy that they wanted. Which did (sometimes) shut them up for the moment. But, I can guarantee you, because the behavior was rewarded, they did it the next time they went to the store and they wanted something that it looked like their parent wasn't going to give them.

It's the same with the people who linked the ACA with funding the government. They are throwing a legislative fit because they haven't been getting their way. If the President and the Democrats back down and give them what they want now, the Tea Partiers will only throw a fit again, and take the country hostage again, the next time they don't get what they want. It is imperative that they not be encouraged in this juvenile behavior.

Ted Cruz and the others who have forced this shutdown on the country should be ashamed of themselves. They don't have the best interests of the nation at heart. They only care to take more power and wealth and attention for themselves, and the hell with the rest of us.

Yes, I am very, very disappointed in them. Not surprised that they would do this; it is in their character. They are, after all, authoritarians at heart. But, yes, extremely disappointed.