Op-Ed: Worst Shutdown in US History

[Abraham3]

Editor's note: Ellen Fitzpatrick is a professor of modern American history
at the University of New Hampshire. Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas
Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University, and director of
the Scholars Strategy Network.

(CNN) -- The federal government shutdown is a virtually unprecedented move
by a political minority committed to rolling back one of the most
significant legislative achievements in recent American history. The
Affordable Care Act of 2010 was passed by two houses of Congress after 14
months of debate. Opponents then challenged the law's constitutionality and
lost that battle in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Less than five months later, American voters re-elected by a 5 million-vote
majority margin a president who stood foursquare behind the Affordable Care
Act. In so doing, the electorate rejected a GOP presidential candidate who
promised its repeal.

Apparently the democratic processes by which Americans make
choices and govern themselves are not acceptable to extremists in the House
of Representatives who seek to halt government or have their way. They would
have Americans see their actions as a patriotic and high-minded defense of
liberty. As the shutdown loomed, several GOP congressmen and analysts took
to the airwaves to trivialize the significance of the House vote.

Some cited previous episodes to suggest that closing the federal government
is a normal byproduct of the American people having "a very deep
disagreement about the future of our country." Rep. Sean Duffy, a Wisconsin
Republican and member of the House Budget Committee, took a different tack
and in so doing revealed what was really under way. Duffy insisted that
President Obama was guilty of recalcitrance in the face of reasonable House
Republicans who simply sought a workable compromise.

more at-
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/02/opinio...html?hpt=op_t1

 

[Stephanie]

oooooooooooooo, they are trying to roll back a SIGNIFICANT legislative achievement in MODERN HISTORY...

good gawd, this UnAforddable No Care is nothing more than this government TAKING OVER insurance and then FORCING you the people to participate if you don't have insurance...OR BE FINED....

yeah, significant ALRIGHT that your Federal Government have become FASCIST

leave it to a professor to write that crap

 

[TooTall]

Editor's note: Ellen Fitzpatrick is a professor of modern American history
at the University of New Hampshire. Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas
Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University, and director of
the Scholars Strategy Network.

(CNN) -- The federal government shutdown is a virtually unprecedented move
by a political minority committed to rolling back one of the most
significant legislative achievements in recent American history. The
Affordable Care Act of 2010 was passed by two houses of Congress after 14
months of debate. Opponents then challenged the law's constitutionality and
lost that battle in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Less than five months later, American voters re-elected by a 5 million-vote
majority margin a president who stood foursquare behind the Affordable Care
Act. In so doing, the electorate rejected a GOP presidential candidate who
promised its repeal.

Apparently the democratic processes by which Americans make
choices and govern themselves are not acceptable to extremists in the House
of Representatives who seek to halt government or have their way. They would
have Americans see their actions as a patriotic and high-minded defense of
liberty. As the shutdown loomed, several GOP congressmen and analysts took
to the airwaves to trivialize the significance of the House vote.

Some cited previous episodes to suggest that closing the federal government
is a normal byproduct of the American people having "a very deep
disagreement about the future of our country." Rep. Sean Duffy, a Wisconsin
Republican and member of the House Budget Committee, took a different tack
and in so doing revealed what was really under way. Duffy insisted that
President Obama was guilty of recalcitrance in the face of reasonable House
Republicans who simply sought a workable compromise.

"We have moved over the last week," Duffy insisted in an interview with
CNN's Piers Morgan. "We first had a defund Obamacare bill. We then moved to
a delay Obamacare bill. And tonight ... we said 'let's delay the individual
mandate. '"

Each step, in fact, had been an effort to shatter what the democratic
process had painstakingly achieved.

Such rhetorical sleights of hand should not obscure the very radical
departure the closure of most of the federal government represents. Some
members of the House of Representatives apparently believe their steadfast
opposition to the Affordable Care law justifies the use of coercive threats:
to defund U.S. government and harm the economy.

In seeking to trump a lawful vote of both
houses of Congress, a Supreme Court ruling and a reaffirming national
presidential election, they tread on extremist ground. Their hubris is
radical and nothing in modern American history provides a fair counterpart.

To be sure, each major expansion of the U.S. federal government's role in
ensuring Social Security, access to health care, and equal civil rights has
been accompanied by intense ideological and partisan conflicts. But when
milestone laws have survived the gantlet of Congress, been affirmed in a
presidential signing ceremony, and withstood Supreme Court review, the
losing party or faction has generally settled for taking arguments about
repeal or revisions to the voters.

They have also, to be sure, continued efforts to chip away at enforcement or
funding through normal legislative steps. Republicans pushed back at parts
of the Social Security Act of 1935 for more than 15 years, for example, but
they never threatened to close down the entire federal government unless
Democrats agreed to undo their own crowning New Deal legislative
achievement.

Republicans also continued to try to amend the Wagner Labor Relations Act
until their partial success in the Taft-Hartley legislation of 1947; but the
Wagner Act itself was never a subject of extortive efforts to defund the
whole government.

Since 1976, policy fights have at times shut down the federal government.
Congressional disputes over federal funding of abortion led to several
funding gaps during the Carter administration. Clashes over government
spending, program cuts and other policy issues, including funding of the
Nicaraguan Contras, led to similar results in the Reagan administration. In
December 1995, the Clinton administration experienced the longest shutdown
in modern American history when House Republicans attempted to extract a
balanced budget from the president -- and failed as public opinion turned
against the GOP.
But in none of these episodes did a minority attempt to undo a major law by
the sorts of threats against democratic decisions we see today.
Some might argue that the actions of Republican House members are justified
by the sweeping changes Affordable Care promises to bring. This law does
seek to fulfill a century-long dream of reformers to ensure access to
affordable health insurance to virtually all U.S. citizens. But the core
provisions are far from radical.

Devised by the conservative Heritage Foundation and first tested in
Massachusetts under Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, the central tenets of
Affordable Care respect and build upon private market mechanisms and
long-established public programs like Medicaid for the poor and disabled.
No, the extremism of the present moment should not be understood as a fair
response to a governmental expansion some consider too vast. Unprecedented
efforts to try to repeal or gut a major law by threatening the nation's
government and economy are a symptom of a political party that has allowed a
faction to pull it far away from fundamental democratic values. We can only
hope that saner heads and hearts will soon prevail.

Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?
A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.

The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton

I rest my case on the rest of this term paper is BS as well

 

[OKTexas]

Bias of the author is evident in the first line, didn't read any further, it's all commie bullshit.