Tag Archives: government shutdown

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Paychecks still roll in for lawmakers

I am holding out hope that the government shutdown is close to being ended and that the bickering parties will strike a deal to raise the nation’s debt limit.

Before all that happens, I want to vent one more time against those lawmakers — and even the president and vice president — who continue to draw their pay while taking measures that send other federal employees home without pay.

Some of our members of Congress have done the right thing. U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., for example has donated his salary to food distribution organizations in his home state. He declared that Americans shouldn’t go hungry while a portion of their government has been shuttered.

There have been others of both parties and I salute them all for doing what I believe is the noble thing.

My own congressman, Republican Mac Thornberry of Clarendon? He’s still getting paid. Hmmm. I am guessing a man of his means isn’t exactly living off his $174,000 annual salary.

I am acutely aware that House members, senators and executive branch leaders surrendering their salaries for a brief period of time won’t balance the budget, it won’t bring us closer to good fiscal health and it won’t settle this dispute between the parties.

However, I’ve long respected those who lead by example. We elect these people to lead, to make tough decisions on our behalf and to demonstrate that they are men and women of their word.

One way to demonstrate their commitment is to share in the pain their decisions are having on others.

Giving up a few weeks’ pay is one of those ways.

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This guy embodies civic-mindedness

Mount Pleasant, S.C., resident Chris Cox is the living, breathing symbol of selfless service to others.

The government shutdown has resulted in the furloughing of “non-essential” government employees, such as the maintenance crews that keep our national treasures dolled up for us tourists.

Enter Chris Cox.

Chris Cox, Superstar

He’s been mowing the lawn in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the past several days while our so-called “leaders” are arguing over whether to reopen the government and extend the debt ceiling to enable the nation to keep paying its bills.

Failure to do either of these things will create significant havoc in people’s lives. Economists say defaulting on our national debt obligations could be near-cataclysmic.

To be sure, Cox isn’t your run-of-the-mill do-gooder. He’s a bit rough around the edges. He reportedly has a colorful past. He might not be able to keep cutting the grass while the feds keep much of the government on the shelf.

You have to admire someone who wants to this kind of a statement. Many of the rest of us just sit around and gripe about Congress, the president and others at or near the top of the federal government chain of command.

This fellow took matters into his own hands.

There’s just something uplifting about this story.

Get yourself cleaned up, Mr. Cox, and run for public office.

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Worse than ‘dog poop’? Really, Rep. Grayson?

So … just how frustrated are members of Congress getting these days?

U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., took the floor of the House of Representatives on Wednesday and said congressional Republicans’ standing in the polls ranks them below “dog poop and toenail fungus.”

Oh, please.

An Arizona state legislator recently compared President Barack Obama directly to Adolf Hitler, which ought to qualify as the supreme insult to civilized human beings everywhere. She has refused to take back her nasty reference.

Grayson’s outburst on the House floor isn’t new for the Florida blowhard. He served a single term in the House before losing his seat in 2010. He was elected once more in 2012 and has picked up where he left off, blustering with hyperbolic references to his political foes.

Grayson fits into that category of national politician who is in love with the sound of his voice and just cannot get to a TV camera quickly enough.

The government shutdown is dragging on. Polling data suggest Congress’s public standing indeed has reached record-low levels. While Grayson and other gasbags are making headlines with idiotic references to their political foes, there appears to be some movement to ending this shutdown and lifting the federal budget debt ceiling — which is the really big deal in all of this bluster.

These times require serious men and women to speak seriously to us about how they intend to govern. Alan Grayson does not fit that category of public official.

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Is it true? Can there finally be a budget breakthrough?

I try to remain optimistic on most matters, even those things relating to politics, policy and the federal government.

Therefore, the glimmer of hope we’re seeing late Wednesday about a possible budget breakthrough strengthens me enough to want to face another day.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/327665-the-ice-breaks-fiscal-talks-set

President Obama is meeting Thursday with key congressional leaders of both parties to start hammering out a deal to reopen part of the government and avoid the cataclysm that would occur if the government fails to increase its debt limit.

Turns out the chairman of the House Budget Committee, former GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, may have a way out of this mess. It involves a short-term spending resolution that is supposed to buy the principals time to hammer out a deal on “entitlement reform.”

Will there ever be a long-term funding solution that avoids this kind of ridiculousness in the future? That remains to be seen.

At least everyone is talking to each other.

Let’s get this deal done.

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Bring ‘CR’ to a vote … and reopen government if it passes

President Obama laid it out there for all to see and hear.

If the speaker of the House of Representatives is right, that a continuing resolution to fund the government lacks the votes in the House, then put the issue to a vote to decide this matter. Period.

Speaker John Boehner keeps insisting the continuing resolution doesn’t have enough support to pass. With that, we’re supposed to take his word for it. Never mind that some independent analysts have suggested at least 22 Republican House members would vote “yes” on a CR, putting the issue over the top assuming all Democratic lawmakers would vote for it.

The president held a news conference today and spelled out as plainly as possible: Put the issue to a vote and let’s find out who’s right.

It cannot be that hard for the speaker to bring the matter up for a vote of the full House. He is the speaker, the Man of the House, the guy with the gavel. Do it, Mr. Speaker.

Then he and the rest of his gang can get back to an even more serious matter: raising the debt ceiling to enable the U.S. government to keep paying its bills.

Obama used some strong language today in excoriating what he called a “radical” bunch of GOP lawmakers. He accused them of extorting the government to get their way.

We’ll raise the debt ceiling, but only if we get everything we want. That’s how Obama framed their argument. Is that wrong? Isn’t that what they’re demanding? Has he misrepresented their argument? I think not on all counts.

If they don’t get what they want, the nation defaults on its obligations, it refuses to spend money already appropriated by Congress, its credit rating gets downgraded — again — and the markets are going to react very badly, taking a lot of retirement account balances into the crapper.

First things first. Vote on the continuing resolution to determine who’s got the votes. If it passes — which I’m betting it would — the government can get back to functioning fully.

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GOP ‘playing with fire’ over debt limit

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is the latest Washington, D.C. official to turn himself into a Sunday news show hologram, making five appearances today on broadcast and cable TV to deliver a stern message.

Failure to increase the nation’s debt limit would be catastrophic to the economy, Lew said.

Is anyone listening on the Republican side of the aisle?

http://thehill.com/video/sunday-shows/326799-lew-congress-is-playing-with-fire

The debt limit stands at $16.7 trillion. If Congress doesn’t approve a measure to boost it by Oct. 17, the nation’s ability to pay its debts runs out. The United States would default on its obligations.

The Republican-led House of Representatives, though, is digging in on that one. The GOP wants to defund the Affordable Care Act so badly it has produced a partial government shutdown. GOP showboats like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas say they’ll do “whatever it takes to defund Obamacare.”

Does that mean destroying people’s retirement accounts, downgrading the nation’s worldwide credit rating, forcing a stock market collapse? Is that what they mean by “whatever it takes”?

Lew’s message is stark. I happen to believe his prognosis. Does anyone in power in D.C. care about those of us out here who are going to pay the price for their foolishness?

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Ethics group takes aim at Neugebauer

You have to love an ethics watchdog group that challenges a blowhard politician for chastising a public service employee who simply was doing her job — as ordered by the very same blowhard politician.

At least I do.

http://www.ibtimes.com/randy-neugebauer-crew-wants-investigation-texas-gop-congressman-verbal-attack-us-park-ranger-video

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed an ethics complaint against West Texas Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock who earlier this week scolded a national park ranger for keeping folks out of the World War II Veterans Memorial in Washington. She was acting on orders because of the partial government shutdown that Neugebauer voted to enact.

He confronted the ranger and told her she should be “ashamed” for refusing to let people into the memorial. Neugebauer was trying to score points because Honor Flight attendees were coming from Texas to tour the WWII memorial.

“My beef wasn’t with the park ranger,” the congressman told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on Friday. “My beef is with the Park Service and with the administration.”

OK, fine. Why, then, did he believe it was necessary to scold the park ranger in public, have it recorded on video and then distributed around the world?

“Obviously, the Park Police employee had no role whatsoever in the decision to shut down the federal government,” CREW executive director Melanie Sloan wrote in her complaint letter. “Instead, as is well recognized, the shutdown was forced by members of the House of Representatives, including Rep. Neugebauer, who have refused to vote for a resolution to fund government operations unless the president acquiesces to an ever-changing series of demands, the most recent of which was a delay in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.”

Go get ‘im, CREW.

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Boehner’s backside is on the line

Poor John Boehner.

He wanted more than anything to be speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He got his wish when Nancy Pelosi handed the gavel to him as the 112th Congress convened in 2011. But now he’s like the dog who kept chasing the car … but didn’t know what to do when he caught it.

The Republican speaker is being whipsawed by factions within his own party.

Does he “cave” to demand to end the government shutdown by agreeing to put a Democratic measure to fund the government to a vote? Doing so would anger the tea party clique that is calling the shots in the GOP caucus.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/03/20804176-john-boehners-legacy-on-the-line-in-shutdown?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1

Does he want to remain speaker or — as he insists — does he want to do what’s best for the country and get the government, all of it, back in action?

Therein lies his dilemma. He must appease the raucous minority within his own caucus or he must do what most of the rest of us want, which is to end this ridiculous stalemate.

He is the speaker of the House, which defines him as a very powerful politician. He’s second in line to the presidency, after the vice president. He can make the speaker’s office as weak or as strong as he wants.

My sense is that Boehner wants to be seen as a strong speaker in the mold of, say, Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn. He’s wired to cut deal with the other side, just as Rayburn was during his many years as speaker.

However, he’s got that faction within his own party that thinks it knows best. It doesn’t know anything. Its members have no institutional knowledge of what happened to their caucus the last time they orchestrated a government shutdown in 1995. They had their heads handed to them at the next election.

Another speaker, Newt Gingrich, knows what happened. He’s been trying to counsel his tea party pals about the folly of their mission. It’s been to no avail.

Meanwhile, the current Man of the House is being flummoxed. Poor guy. Maybe he shouldn’t have wanted to be speaker quite so badly.

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‘Politicization’ of vets memorials continues

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is right when he urges all parties to avoid politicizing veterans memorials while part of the federal government remains shut down.

He talks a good game, but he and his colleagues play something quite different.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/10/john-cornyn-dont-politicize-veterans-memorials/

Cornyn made his statements in front of the World War II Memorial. Then came Sen. Ted Cruz, Cornyn’s fellow Texas Republican, to welcome Honor Flight veterans from Texas to the memorial. What did Cruz do? He blamed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the mess that has engulfed Washington.

Members of the House and Senate, by their presence at these memorials, in effect politicize their very existence and make pawns out of the veterans who come to visit them.

The National Park Service that runs these memorials has been forced to shut down because Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on a simple spending measure to fund their operation. Just the other day a West Texas congressional Republican, Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock, put on a disgraceful display of grandstanding by upbraiding a park ranger for doing her job, which was to keep people from entering one of these veterans memorials.

Was he politicizing the memorial? Ummm, yes.

I believe Sen. Cornyn and other members of both congressional chambers — from both political parties — should concentrate on settling this issue and avoid public displays that, by definition, lead to the politicization of solemn memorials meant to honor brave Americans who fought and died in defense of this country.

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Outburst makes me miss Larry Combest

Randy Neugebauer’s disgraceful outburst against a U.S. National Park Service employee has brought unflattering comparisons between the West Texas congressman and the man who preceded him in that office.

Neugebauer, a Lubbock Republican, confronted a park ranger this week as she was seeking to enforce a rule banning visitors from entering an open-air exhibit on the Washington D.C. Mall. The exhibit was the World War II veterans memorial and Neugebauer, whose votes in the House of Representatives contributed to the partial government shutdown now in its fourth day, upbraided the ranger for refusing to let people in. “You should be ashamed,” he told the ranger. The exchange was caught on video and has gone viral.

It was an idiotic example of what’s transpiring now in D.C. The people responsible for this mess are now becoming the chief grandstanders.

I thought of Republican Larry Combest, who represented the same 19th Congressional District from 1985 until 2002, when he resigned unexpectedly to return to private life.

Combest came from a different era. He is just as conservative as Neugebauer but he saw up close the good side of divided government. Combest once served on the late Sen. John Tower’s staff and he would tell me of the times Tower would argue ferociously with the likes of the late Sen. Hubert Humphrey, who was just as liberal as Tower was conservative. Tower and Humphrey would debate on the Senate floor and then walk out arm in arm after the session was gaveled to a close. The men were foes — never enemies — while they were on the clock, but friends when time expired.

Combest understood that. His best friend in the House was a Democrat, Charlie Stenholm of Abilene, with whom he served on the Agriculture Committee. Stenholm lost his congressional seat in 2004; his district was paired with Neugebauer’s district. The GOP-led Texas Legislature made sure Neugebauer would win by stacking the new district with true-blue Republican voters.

I’ve long wondered how Combest voted in that election.

I got to know Combest pretty well over many years. For a time, from the early 1990s until 2001, his congressional district included the Randall County portion of Amarillo. Thus, he was a frequent visitor to the newspaper where I worked. I don’t know Neugebauer; I know only of him. What I witnessed this week was thoroughly disagreeable.

I have tried in the past day or so to imagine Larry Combest confronting that park ranger. The image just doesn’t register. Gentlemen know better than to make spectacles of themselves.