By a Senate vote of 81-18 and a House vote of 285-144, Congress sent President Obama a compromise bill that averts a government debt default and reopens the government for now. However, this is only a temporary fix because at the beginning of next year, we will once again face the specter of another shutdown and looming default.
We should never have been taken to the brink. The Tea Party Republicans will rue the day they insisted on defunding Obamacare, the President’s signature health care reform. With a Democratic controlled Senate, anyone with half a brain would have known there was no way in hell that Congress would agree to defund the Affordable Care Act. And by holding out, it was the Tea Party Republicans that caused the government shutdown and nearly led the government to default on its debts.
Obama and the Democrats were the big winners in this stupid mess. They got everything they wanted while the Republicans got nothing but a bad press and a drastic drop in the polls. Even before the government shutdown, issues that are important to women, like abortion and contraceptives, were hurting the Republican chances in 2016. Polls show that the public blames the Republicans for the Congressional impasse and the government shutdown. Add it all adds up to spell victory for the Democrats in 2016.
The only thing that might turn the next presidential election in favor of the GOP is if Obamacare turns out to be the disaster that most Republicans are predicting. But, don’t count on it.
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