Quoting time

Post-shutdown, this op-ed from the Washington Post's  Catherine Rampell was too good to pass up.


Blame McConnell and Ryan for the shutdown

My three quotes:

1. "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) are responsible for the completely avoidable three-day federal shutdown that Congress moved to end on Monday. They will likewise be responsible for the catastrophe coming in a few weeks if Congress can’t get its act together to raise the debt ceiling."

2. "Every year, Congress must pass a budget. This is . . . not a surprise. Yet for the first half of last year, Republican congressional leaders chose to spend their time and energy chasing a repeal of Obamacare, a phenomenally unpopular endeavor that would have raised premiums and ripped health insurance from tens of millions of Americans."

3. "Somehow this dynamic duo [McConnell and Ryan] still takes no responsibility for our lack of a budget. They’re like students who play video games instead of writing their term paper, plead for extensions, still wait until the last minute to start writing — and then blame the teacher when they don’t finish."

In other (simpler) words, if the Repubsickuns had just passed a budget funding CHIP and renewing DACA, which they could EASILY have done in the autumn, none of this would have happened.  We have to constantly keep that in mind to be ready for the blue tsunami this November.