Russian Roulette was played with a gun.
American Roulette is played with dollars and can be just as lethal.
It seems that Congress cannot get out of its own way when it comes to actually doing their job, especially when the issue is spending and the budget. John Boehner found out the hard way that conservatives can make life difficult for him over a straightforward spending bill to keep the government from shutting down as of September 30.
The title of the article from Politico that details this bit of silliness, House conservatives revolt on spending bill,
pretty much says it all. It's revolting that our elected officials are still dithering while ordinary people suffer.
Disaster aid for Hurricane Irene is part of the problem because the right wing doesn't want to just give money to devastated areas, but rather, they want to cut other parts of the budget so those lazy homeowners who lost everything can't suck the government dry with their petty personal complaints. Here's the horse trade:
The House measure for the next 13 months included up to $3.65 billion in disaster aid and a combination of funding transfers and across-the-board cuts used to stay within spending targets. An estimated $1 billion in emergency funds is provided for the remainder of this fiscal year, given the dire straits of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster reserve, down to little more than $200 million. But that would be offset with monies taken from an advanced technology program for the auto industry, a flash point for Democrats who say it’s a source of jobs amid the bad economy.
I agree with you bob this is a classic gambling game of Roulette. Players should know the origin and variations as well as a brief introduction and how to play the game and its modern variations.
ReplyDeleteAnd they're still playing the game, though it hasn't worked out as the GOP wanted it to.
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