Will they? Won't They? Will They Just Kick It Down the Road?

Congress.

Politics.

Washington.

Politics.

This is not the way to run a nation!

Being a (very) liberal Democrat, I want to just cry in anger at the (very) conservative responses of the Republican leadership. Since the passing of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) the whole effort of the Republican Party's hostage takers (i.e. Tea Party ultra-conservatives) have been unable to think about anything but repealing this law. As I read somewhere in an op-ed kind of piece, they must be afraid that it WILL work and then where will they be?

But what they have done in their ideological stubbornness is all but shut down the progress of the country. The sequester is probably more to blame for the slow-down of the economic resurgence than anything the Obama Administration is doing. A government shut-down will only make it much worse. They won't negotiate. And when Obama doesn't, they blame him.

It makes me long for the days of Ronald Reagan or, even worse, Richard Nixon. Reagan was a communicator and knew he had to work with the other side of the aisle. That's how democracies work. Nixon may have been a crook, a liar and many other things, but he did manage to keep some lines open with Congress. He was not an ideologue. He was a politician.

The real losers in all this will be us- the people. Congress has stalled and cried and gotten angry and so many other things over the past 5 years that they have seriously hurt our country. Obama could agree with all their ideas- and they would still reject them- because they came from him.

Ah, maybe there's the answer. Obama should present a whole new plan based entirely on the Tea Party agenda. Praise the ideas- and take them as his own. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a big change in the Congress then.

I know. It wouldn't work. Nothing will.

Maybe Obama needs to let it all happen. Maybe he needs to let the Republican House shut the government down and lay out a clear reason why he is doing what he is doing and what they are NOT doing. It wouldn't be pretty, but somebody might get the idea of who really is causing the blockage in our national political heart.

No, it wouldn't work either.

But, personally, I'm scared of all this and its long-term impact.

Unless some miracle occurs, it is going to be a long fall and winter in Washington.