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Government Shutdown – Koch Brothers

Government Shutdown – Frustration

Government shutdown day 10. Nothing really is going on. I did enjoy the letter that one of the Koch Brothers sent to Capitol Hill. The letter basically stated that they were not behind the government shutdown.

Data seem to suggest otherwise. From LA Times:

Conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, for example, is a Koch-funded nonprofit that calls for repealing Obamacare, supports tea party favorites like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and spent more than $36 million during the 2012 election.

And the Koch brothers recently donated $500,000 to the Heritage Action Fund, a conservative advocacy group, through the intermediary Freedom Partners. Heritage Action Fund has urged lawmakers to place Obamacare at the forefront of their shutdown and debt limit considerations. The group even held a “money bomb,” asking for a surge of donations to support its efforts to “ensure Obamacare is defunded.”

What was their plan? To “attach legislation to defund Obamacare to a ‘must pass’ spending bill,” and eventually “force Speaker (John) Boehner to act on defunding.”

That’s a scenario that sounds uncannily like the buildup to the shutdown.

By ecthompsonmd|2013-10-10T21:02:22-04:00October 10th, 2013|Congress, Party Politics|Comments Off

So What Now – Government Shutdown

I know that there are tons of people on either side of this debate. Who shut down the government? The answer for anyone who believes in facts is the Republicans. If you don’t let a little thing like facts get in your way, then I guess you can say that the Democrats shut down the government in order to save ObamaCare.

The problem is that we are watching a huge train wreck. There aren’t going to be winners and losers. There are going to be losers and really big-time losers. Why? Because Republicans have backed themselves in a corner. They can give up or hold fast. You know Republicans. They will not give up. Hell, they will argue with themselves in order not to give up.

On the other hand, you have Obama and the Democrats. I’m not sure that there is any calculus in which Obama throws his signature domestic program to the wolves. It just isn’t going to happen. Also, Obama thinks that his single biggest failure as a president was knuckling under during the last debt ceiling “hostage” negotiations. He isn’t going to do this again. If he gives in now the Republicans will ask for more and more at each debt ceiling negotiation. Nope, Obama has to hold fast.

That leaves us with those who have the most to lose if the debt ceiling isn’t raised – Wall Street. In my mind, the only folks that can change this stand-off are the guys on Wall Street. They will have to, en masse, force the Republican Party to wake up and smell the manure. They are going to have to threaten to cut off financial support if this craziness doesn’t end. They are going to have to call a huge press conference in which all of the major Wall Street banks stand up and call out the Republicans on a strategy that has the potential of completely sinking the American economy and the world economy. Will Wall Street side with the Dems? If their wallet depends on it, yep. They will side with whoever will keep the money flowing.

Ladies and Gentleman – this is going to get ugly.