The government has finally reopened. People are very disappointed in the way the government has handled the whole shutdown issue. Recent polls have shown that most of the blame is falling on the GOP. Now other statistics show that it is going to be easier for the Democrats to take back the Senate in 2014. Also, many of the Republican's main donors are skeptical about what is happening in the GOP. This also helps the democrats in morale and funding. The shutdown is finally over, but throughout the shutdown the majority of the blame was falling on the Republicans. The shutdown began because of senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz of the Republican party, pushed the GOP to try to make significant changes to Obamacare before it was enacted. This caused disagreement and eventually the shutdown. Republicans from the House presented many new deals to the Senate and to the president which were repeatedly denied. Republicans were eventually forced to settle for a more scaled back deal. People saw this government shutdown as Republican stubbornness. This helps the Democrats in future elections. Another thing that is going to help Democrats is the rift in the Republican party between Republicans and their emboldened tea party colleagues. Tea party groups are already devising a plan to take on the Republican party in upcoming elections.
My opinion on this article is that Republicans' chances in elections are going to be hurt because of the government shutdown. But I don't think that it is because of Republican stubbornness. It is because of the public's general misunderstanding of what went on during the government shutdown. The Republicans presented many deals for compromise so that they could end the shutdown, but Democrats would not budge. They were being just as stubborn and their party should be just as hurt as the Republican party.
The reason the majority of the blame rightly falls on GOP backs is, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, “Everybody chipped in and gave you money to go to the store and buy milk, bread, and eggs; then you decided on your own, ‘you know what, I don’t really like eggs; eggs are a Communist menace turning our country Muslim, so I’m just going to buy milk and bread.’ And everybody else is like, ‘we passed a law saying you were going to buy milk, bread, and eggs and the supreme court upheld that... shopping list.’ And that’s when you burnt the store down.” (edited out some words as to not offend anyone) Essentially, why should the Democrats compromise to destroy their single most substantial piece of legislation passed in the five years.
ReplyDeleteEthan, first of all I love your comments. Both sides were being stubborn, but most of the blame should fall on the Republicans. The Republicans (at least the one's I know about) were being way too extreme and saying you either take it away or we have a government shutdown. It's hard for the Democrats to do something about that because if they really believe in it, they don't want to just give it up. I agree with you, Rooney, about the fact that this shutdown will hurt the Republicans in future elections, but that is only if people remember what has happened. If people aren't going through something at the moment, they forget about it and they don't educate themselves about the topics. I am just hoping that people will remember and take out some of the extreme conservatives (and liberals) so more compromising can happen.
ReplyDeleteBut the GOP didn't say take it away or government shutdown. The GOP made a variety of compromises. One of their compromises was to just delay Obamacare for one year. That doesn't seem like much to prevent the government shutdown, Kasey. Why should the Democrats compromise? Because this issue is going to continue to be here unless we do compromise.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the GOP was already going down in public opinion and the shutdown has just fueled this more. This day and age I see for and incline towards a more liberal approach by a lot of America. I don't know what will change that but swings in popularity goes on between both parties but with the shutdown and a usually pretty liberal media overall I see the democrats staying in favor of public opinion for a bit.
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