Shut Down Will Save Us Money (Got a bridge in Brooklyn I will see you too)

Okay so its beginning to look like we may have the government shut down after all since the idiots DC can't decide what to do. Damnocrats don't want to make any more cuts and Reboobicans don't want funding for EPA and Planned Parenthood so we have an impasse. Admittedly we still have a little over 12 hours to go so there might be a miracle, but I am not holding my breath.

So everyone is thinking about how we can shut it all down and save us a big chunk of change. I mean if everything is shut down than we aren't spending any money right? Well, unfortunately it doesn't work that way. A really excellent article, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-price-of-a-government-cnnm-3294374261.html covers all of the financial reasons why a government shut down actually costs us money.

So if the shut down won't save any money for the US and will make everyone affected by it work three times as hard when they come back why can't we simply agree to disagree in the short run and pass a budget. If having another unneeded shutdown will cause us all to suffer and damage our Cool Points level with the rest of the world then why are we doing it? I can sum up the reasons in one word. (also name that tune in one note but that's not important.) That word is Ego.

We have always been a nation of compromise. Our founding fathers realized very early on that there was no way such a diverse and strong willed people would be able to agree 100% on anything so they set up our government so that compromise would always be the rule of the day with, usually, majority rule determining our paths. Somewhere along the line, we have lost that message. Instead of compromise and majority rule, our government is rapidly turning into "My way or the highway" style of government.

Once again I am not singling out one side or the other. I'm not picking on Elephants or Donkeys and I am certainly not picking on Baggers. Every single group is at fault here because no one wants to compromise. No one wants to give any more than they have to. Sure, all sides have made concessions in the current budget fight, but no one really has given up much of anything. Damnocrats want things their way and Reboobicans want things their way and the Baggers...Well they really need a new party name lets just leave it at that.

For the record, lets look at the current sticking points. (D) don't want to cut any more spending from the budget because they argue such cuts would further damage our fragile economy. (R) want funding for Planned Parenthood and new powers given to the EPA stricken from the budget plus even more spending cuts. Now I am no economist (Can't even balance my own check book) so lets skip the first and last bits here and focus on the middle two.

(R) argue that PP is one of the biggest boosters of Abortion in the world and that Federal dollars should not go towards that. I actually agree with this. I do not believe in Abortion except in cases where the mother's life is threatened or in cases of incest. However, as much as I am against it, this should not be a sticking point that shuts down the government. Work it out later guys when you have six months of free time in between flying on the taxpayers money or tweeting from your seats.

(R) also are against granting the EPA the funding and powers it needs to regulate the horrendous amounts of greenhouse gas and other pollutants that get pumped into the air every day. I am about as Green as you can get and still live in a city and I agree that the gases need to be more strongly regulated and that the EPA should have the power to regulate and fine. Again, I do not feel that this is something that should be used to shut down the government. Work it out later.

Despite the fact that the above two paragraphs focus on Reboobicans, I am not choosing sides here. Like I said in the beginning, if there is a shut down than it is both sides fault. Since my wife works for the government and my brother proudly serves in the Military (Over 40 years now!) my life is directly affected by the shut down and so are the lives of dozens of my closest friends.

We cannot afford to let hubris get the best of common sense. The government needs to get off their collective buttocks and move forward. If they don't then they all need to be given the boot. We here at the SIOTBAA Society (Who wants a tee-shirt?) are asking the government to do the right thing and if they don't we are asking the people of the US to protest. Write letters (Mail will still be delivered), take out ads or hells hire a skywriter, but let these idiots know how you feel. What have you got to lose? Let your voices be heard and maybe it will shake them up a little.

God speed all!