In playing chicken, both the GOP House and the Democratic Senate/White House are dicking over the budget. No budget deal, government shutdown. Then this piece comes in from TPM:
senate majority leader harry reid (d-nv) has laid a final offer at republicans' feet, and it will require them to drop their insistence on defunding planned parenthood, and accepting what reid insists is an agreed upon level of spending cuts. If republicans don't take it, and if reid's not bluffing, the government will shutdown.
Speaker Boehner is facing troubles in his own party over this supposed final ultimatum:
[rep. Blake farenthold (r-tx)] said the riders are important to voters back home. And if house speaker john boehner agrees to a deal which doesn't included the abortion rider, he could have a tough time convincing his members to go along with it. "i've gotta go back home, look people in the eye and say, look, i told you $100 billion, but i went for less, and i've got to have a because," farenthold said. "because i don't want to be perceived as a liar back home."
So are these guys telling me that thousands and thousands of Government employees will lose a paycheck (including
deployed troops) if not their jobs* over irrelevant piss-ant funding to an agency that doesn't matter to most Americans unless its part of the same old culture war bullshit?
Times like these I wish we just can bury the damn Culture War.
*=Fun Fact: NASA employees aren't allowed to work (even voluntarily for free) during a Govt. shutdown.
