Posted on 10/10/2013 10:58:12 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Missouri’s Republican U.S. Senator is expressing some frustration with his GOP colleagues in the House of Representatives over a temporary debt ceiling increase proposal and the partial government shutdown.
Sen. Roy Blunt says the shutdown was a strategic error because it is overshadowing the troubled implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
“The President had as difficult an August and early September as any president, second-term president, could have and we figured out how to change the subject,” he said Thursday in a conference call.
Blunt says an offer by House Republicans to temporarily raise the debt ceiling is a missed opportunity to cut spending.
“The debt ceiling, combined with opening the government, gave us at least an end date on when it was likely we could bring these discussions to conclusion,” he said.
House Speaker John Boehner and other top Republicans met with President Obama Thursday afternoon to discuss a short-term proposal by Boehner to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. The White House has called the proposal “encouraging.”
Legislation is far different from actual votes.
The last thing needed was centrists ditching the GOP en masse, in particular with the potential to pick up the Senate next year.
Dems made gains in 1996
Go back and read what I said. I said Republican HELD the house and gained seats in the Senate...
Bull
People like their Congressman and conservatives would have voted for their tea party Congressman as usual. The House would have stayed in R hands
It is the Senate that is big here. Getting the Senate would have allowed Congress to set the agenda for the final 2 years of O’s term, laying the ground work for 2016 when the ACA would have been repealed with an R Congress and an R President
That opportunity has been blown.
Open seat gains in red states, while losing an incumbent.
2 seats in the Senate doesn’t cut it. Need 5 for a majority, and 6-7 to give insurance against someone getting wobbly.
Totally agree with you. Now the uninformed can rest easy that the world won’t end...at least for a couple of months.
By then, the government computers will be back on line and the freebie seeking Obamanites will get religion.
(Nice to see the market up 225 points)
Yes, it will collapse in on itself just the way the IRS has, EPA has, the Education and Energy Department have, Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac have vaporized, the way the Fed’s printing of $85 billion a month has led to the Fed’s demise, the way Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare have gone broke and blown away, et al., et al., et al....
The list of our successes in waiting out big goverment is miraculous to behold.
Reading through these posts here and seeing opposing opinions that all make some sense, your post pretty much is enough for anyone to read.
As you said, the MSM via the White House contols the information and that will never change unless we have a bloody revolution and I doubt that will ever happen.
Feel good stories of the awesomeness of the ACA combined with your point that once a massive Federal institution is born, it never dies but just grows means the ACA has to be killed now.
The last thing needed was centrists ditching the GOP en masse, in particular with the potential to pick up the Senate next year.
Ok, so lets have it your way. Lets give Obama everything he wants on the budget and not fight Obamacare so we don't make the precious "centerists" mad. While were at it, might as well give him amnesty for illegals, gun control and Cap & Trade after all most polls show those same "centerists" support that as well. Then maybe if were nice enough we might win enough centerist votes to take the Senate in 2014 and then we can REALLY stand up to Obama on...uhhh...uhhm..well not much since we already gave him all of his 2nd term agenda.
I see the so-called government shutdown overreach ‘distract’ Obamacare exchange launch failure meme everywhere, using the republican popularity at all time low as proof unanimously. “Let Dems Own Obamacare” seems to be the new strategy floating this late in the game, WTF?
First, the Republican popularity at all time low is to be expected. We have unprecedented coordinated campaign from Obama admin and legacy media all blame republicans, polls are going to find these low info folks to reflect that.
But the tanking Obama number tell us these low info folks are not as blind and mindless as these so-called party elders make them out to be.
Any signal from GOP to back down even 1 centimeter will be it, the base will leave them and the reason GOPe’s so keen on amnesty.
It is a false premise to suggest that people would vote for the Tea Party if they act more like establishment Republicans who are similarly loathed by conservative base.
You have to be an opposition party be seen as an opposition party.
Non sequitor
R’s were winning the immigration battle and the gun control battle.
R’s lost the Obamacare battle in 2010, again in 2011 and once more in 2012.
Let the damn thing fall apart. The defund strategy has proven to be suicidial, the House is about to cave, and R’s will be routed in 2014
Some conservatives need to read more of Sun Tzu and the Art of War. Suicide missions don’t win battles, they just give you far less soldiers to fight
Heard this line of thought in dealing with the democrats 1990, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012. Now I will concede we won in 2000-2004, but literally by the skin of our teeth. In 1994 conservative came out in force against Clinton and the RINO’s rolled with the win until we started pushing against RINO agenda. In 2002 we picked up some seats purely on 9/11 emotion and the rest of those years we followed the liberal establishments advice, how has that worked out for us?
Had the Congress conceded this time and rolled over yet again those 2014 dreams of big wins would be just that and still may be depending on how this plays out. The conservative base, continually bit*hed slapped by the RINO’s and Party Boys and then told it was the conservatives fault they lose every time isn’t going to cut it anymore. The base is not prepared to take another beating from the RINO’s and is in a very ugly and unforgiving mood. RINO’s take heed.
Nonsense again.
In safe red districts, cons would come out and vote for their tea party reps.
The losses will be in the Senate, once again rendering the House majority obselete because nothing will get through the Senate, thusly nothing to the President’s desk to force his hand.
The problem isn’t that we have too few senators. The problem is that we have too many senators like McCain and McConnell, and too few like Lee and Cruz. The Democrats understand that it isn’t a numbers game, it’s a high stakes battle revolving around determination and fortitude. Why were they so willing to lose the House in order to pass ObamaCare? Why did the loss of the Kennedy seat not derail them? Why did the political disaster of 2010 (from their perspective) not slow them down?
Because they understand that a few seats here or there doesn’t make a difference. What matters is being more determined and more focused than the other side.
I have no way of knowing whether this helps or hurts the Republicans politically in 2014. And neither does anyone. The shutdown in 95 had, at most, a marginal effect, despite occurring at the worst possible time for the Republicans (tons of vulnerable freshman, a general election involving a popular incumbent against a man as inspiring as whole wheat toast, and, most importantly, a shutdown over an issue that didn’t personally affect anyone).
What I do know is that had we done nothing, the Democrats would have been perfectly fine. Any problems with ObamaCare would have been lost in the water that the media would make as muddy as possible. It would have cost them a few seats, perhaps, but nothing that would have made a difference.
2004 was a BIG win, because W was smart enough not to completely aliente centrists while still pursuing a conservative tax cutting agenda (see the 2003 tax cuts)
2006 was much more a result of Iraq War fatigue and corruption scandals in the White House
2008 was seriously bad headwinds.
2012 was having a completely ineffective candidate at the top.
Again, we can go back to being the people who set the agenda, or be resigned to those who obstruct the agenda.
This is a long war and picking the right battles is key. Suicide missions are just stupid, as this will prove when the House caves and the Senate is lost again in 2014
“When people start to see exploding deductables, or plans that only cover individuals and not families, the charade would be over.”
Let me help here and I’m not trying to be a jerk Madish. What you posted above is commonly called “Common Sense”. And yes, common sense would say once working people see exploding deductables and poor Healthcare, the villagers will wake up and turn on the President.
The problem is our country has too small of a fraction that excercise common sense anymore. Sure, some will finally see the light, even some Dem voters. But far too many will still lap up whatever the WH/MSM feeds them.
Trust me, there will be some laughable excuses pushed that will still somehow blame the GOP and the whipping boy The Tea Party on why the ACA is a clustergob. And the cluless who have been brainwashed since birth will direct their anger at the wrong sources as they always do every time.
It was a brilliant move. And you know what? It doesn't leave Snowden in the background. The government is out of control, and now everyone knows it.
Given your demonstrated ability to cherry-pick data, I should think Zerobama's flunkies would hire you in a NY taxicab minute.
Yes, but Republican’s held the house and actually gained seats in the Senate in 1996. So if anything, the shutdown was a wash...
Well, Clinton did cruise comfortably to re-election.
And before you say it was Perot’s fault even if Dole had got 100% of Perot’s votes Clinton still would’ve had more votes.
“In correct
Dems made gains in 1996”
True — the Dems picked up 8 House seats in 1996 — after the biggest wave election in 40 years in 1994. It was inevitable that a few House seats (like Dan Rostenkowski’s heavily Dem Chicago district) were going to go back to the Dems in 1996, but to lose only 8 and still keep a large House majority in a year when Clinton was on the ballot and re-elected against a horrible GOP candidate at the top of the ticket was at the very worst a wash. Also, during this same election, the GOP added 2 Senate seats to their majority in the upper chamber.
When we look at these facts, we must always examine the context during which they occurred. And all in all, given who was running at the top of the GOP ticket in 96, it’s an awfully big stretch to claim that the GOP “lost” in the congressional elections, let alone tie those so-called losses to the 95 shutdown.
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