Horsey: Defending tea party delusions, Republicans shut down government
(brilliant Horsey cartoon at link)
Because the No. 1 priority of House Republicans is to cater to the fantasies of their tea party constituents, the federal government has been shut down. The loony legions that drive Republican primary elections now are driving the United States toward calamity.
Weirdly, the continuing funding resolution that the Republicans have refused to pass is a seriously conservative budget plan far closer to what House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan asked for than what President Obama would have liked. But, instead of claiming a victory for fiscal conservatism, the Republicans’ right-wing absolutists have refused to pass the continuing resolution unless it includes provisions to cripple or kill the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.
On the very day that Obamacare’s new insurance market is opening to make healthcare affordable to millions of Americans who have gone without it, the GOP radicals still think they can bring the system down. In this, they are clearly deluded, given that the Senate and the White House are under the control of the people who created healthcare reform, but, then, their whole crusade is built on fantastical thinking.
From the very start of the healthcare debate that began after Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the tea party Republicans have believed some preposterous things. Most famous of all was the big brouhaha about “death panels,” those fictitious boards of bureaucrats who tea party types claimed would be empowered by Obamacare to kill off grandpas and grannies. But there were many other untruths and, from a long list assembled by Politifact, here are just a few:
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http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-republicans-shut-down-20130930,0,2380001.story
