Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Sanguine about the Shutdown

Conventional wisdom could be right that Republicans are going to take the political fallout from the government shutdown.

If the shutdown causes Republicans to lose their majority in the house, that's going to be a real problem. I don't want the real life version of Monty Brewster free to spend without a Republican house to stop it. 

But I doubt Republicans will lose the house.

Republicans are apparently willing to pass resolution after resolution to fund the parts of government people actually care about, like the VA, and even national parks. Democrats are demanding all or nothing. Can they really insist on all or nothing without taking on serious water? Is the media really that powerful? Maybe, but I don't think so.

Or maybe the Republicans take the blame in national polls, but do well in their local districts. All politics is local, right? It's not clear to me how this plays into the seat-by-seat elections in the house.

And is anyone really going to care that the government is shut down? Remember how we were told the sequester was going to be the end of the word? But it came and went with a whimper.

Maybe that will happen again. Maybe it won't. But I don't think most people will notice any change in their daily lives. And I hope that makes people think, why did we need all that government to begin with?




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