{"id":4249,"date":"2013-12-18T04:22:54","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T04:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=4249"},"modified":"2013-12-18T04:22:54","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T04:22:54","slug":"kumbaya-moment-forget-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4249","title":{"rendered":"Kumbaya moment? Forget about it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Well, that was a brief moment of &#8220;Kumbaya&#8221; for congressional Republicans and Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Now we&#8217;re apparently back to business as usual over the Affordable Care Act and whether to increase the federal debt ceiling.<\/p>\n<p>Such madness is hard to eradicate.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/on-the-money\/budget\/193408-mcconnell-says-gop-preparing-for-debt-ceiling-fight<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says Republicans are ready for a fight over raising the debt ceiling. They want to make changes in the Affordable Care Act in exchange for increasing the nation&#8217;s borrowing limit.<\/p>\n<p>Sound familiar? It should. We&#8217;ve been through this already. It&#8217;s as tiresome as ever.<\/p>\n<p>The Kumbaya moment was supposed to have occurred when a bipartisan committee of House members and senators approved a two-year budget and spending plan that would forestall another partial government shutdown. The House voted overwhelmingly to approve it and it appears headed to an equally decisive &#8220;yea&#8221; vote in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>It was nice while it lasted, albeit briefly. Now congressional Republicans are threating &#8212; once more &#8212; to hold the debt ceiling hostage and threaten to force the U.S. government to renege on its financial obligations. Why? Because they just cannot stand the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n<p>The government will reach its debt ceiling early in 2014. The fight will commence shortly. Democrats will tell us once more than defaulting on our debts would be catastrophic, a point that many economists agree with. Republicans will insist on concessions before lifting the ceiling.<\/p>\n<p>Here we go once more.<\/p>\n<p>The Grand Old Party should listen to one of its own: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, one of the architects of the just-completed budget deal. Ryan said that compromise means no one gets everything they want. Yet compromise is what&#8217;s needed to get things done, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Chairman Ryan also conceded that his party lost the 2012 presidential election and that &#8220;elections do have consequences.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t do this, GOP.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, that was a brief moment of &#8220;Kumbaya&#8221; for congressional Republicans and Democrats. Now we&#8217;re apparently back to business as usual over the Affordable Care Act and whether to increase the federal debt ceiling. Such madness is hard to eradicate. http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/on-the-money\/budget\/193408-mcconnell-says-gop-preparing-for-debt-ceiling-fight U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says Republicans are ready for a fight &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4249\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Kumbaya moment? Forget about it<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[164,1302,1978,3099,3524],"class_list":["post-4249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-affordable-care-act","tag-debt-ceilng","tag-government-shutdown","tag-mitch-mcconnell","tag-paul-ryan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}