Looming Government Shutdown Reveals House Leadership's Fiscal Irresponsibility and Willingness to Put Americans At Risk

Based on their absolute refusal to compromise on the Federal budget, Tea Party adherents in the Republican party will force the government to shutdown at the end of Friday. Just last week, Tea Party Republicans traveled to the Nation's capital to urge the House Republican Majority not to compromise with Democrats in funding the government. Unfortunately, out of fear of alienating their Tea Party friends, House Republican leadership appears to lack the political will to put the interests of our country first.

While Tea Party Republicans insist on hard-line calls for fiscal responsibility and many other House Republicans demand social policy provisions, the impact of their actions reveals their fiscal irresponsibility and willingness to put other Americans at risk. Hopefully history will not repeat itself.

As demonstrated by the five-day government shutdown in November 1995 during the House Republican majority, American taxpayers lost an estimated $750 million, according to ABC News. The processing of Social Security and Medicare checks was delayed. Other adverse consequences of the shutdown, as reported by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, included:

• Veterans being deprived of multiple services, ranging from health and welfare to finance and travel.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceasing disease surveillance.
• Delays occurring in the processing of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives applications by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
• 368 National Park Service sites, national museums, and monuments were forced to close, resulting in a loss of 9 million visitors. This, in turn, reduced tourism revenues to local communities.
• Up to 30,000 applications by foreigners for visas and 200,000 U.S. applications for passports were not processed. As a result, U.S. tourist industries and airlines reportedly sustained millions of dollars in losses, according to Congressional Research Service.

 

Comments

[Just a regular joe]

04:53 PM on 04/06/2011

by refusing to negotiate the DEMOCRATES are proving that they are out of touch with the people and because they failed to pass a budget before the Republicans gained a majority they prove that they are just as fiscaly irresponsible and willing to put Americans at risk. I say that if they cant do their jobs and pass a budget then fire them all, Democrates and Republicans alike, then elect new officials that will do the job. Its absolute B.S. that congress continues to get paid in the event of a government shutdown. They should be the first to not get pay or benifits if they cant do their job. We need to ammend the Constitution, Artical 1 section 6 and let the states that these iresponsible senators and congressmen represent pay them not the federal treasury, then maybe they will start listening to the people again when they find out we voted to cut their pay.

[Cynicon Implant]

01:25 PM on 04/06/2011

Hey John, why didn't the dems pass a budget last fall when they controlled both houses of Congress? Nice leadership!

[sunriseoverbandon]

01:19 PM on 04/06/2011

"refusal to compromise on the Federal budget..."

Compromise on what? The Democrats have failed to do a budget for the last two years!!!

[shadow322]

01:12 PM on 04/06/2011

Rep. Conyers - I admire your insightfulness and willingness to fight for what's right for our country. Thank you!

[William50]

11:24 AM on 04/06/2011

What this test of strength actually shows is the need to change American politics. By placing another party not a part of the two absolute parties in to Congress we would not be faced with this stupid shoving match. If you would like or if you are ready to demand a Congress that is ready to take on the leadership of this great nation you have to threaten them with losing their jobs.

[lindabear]

10:55 AM on 04/06/2011

How about freezing pay for Congress until this is resolved.

[too young but old enough]

01:21 PM on 04/06/2011

Congress would never approve that!

[Oldchef]

10:50 AM on 04/06/2011

The tr0lls meme for the day seems to be to chastise Democrats for not passing a budget last year. Take a look back at your boy McConnell tying up the Senate with filibusters to everything and anything including efforts to pass the budget. You've wasted the last 3 months with attacks on women's bodily functions, (how many bills put forth regarding abortion, but none for JOB creation?), attacks on Big Bird on PBS, and pushing the idea that the deficit was caused by union office clerks and teachers, not the uber-wealthy bankers who crashed the economies of most of the world's countries, including ours. Even the blue dogs can't stomach your efforts to shift the burden of Wall Street's ill-considered gambling debts onto the middle class.

[lindabear]

10:54 AM on 04/06/2011

Well stated!

[Free123]

11:34 AM on 04/06/2011

You should ask yourself why Rep. Conyers is talking about Republican fiscal irresponsibility, when the Dems are the biggest spenders. And people are correctly questioning the Dems did not pass a budget when the had the majority, it is a good question to ask. Why did Obama focus over a year on health care instead of focusing on job creation? And who was in charge of Wall Street regulations? Do the names Barney Frank and Dodd sound familiar?

[Rooster54]

11:54 AM on 04/06/2011

There hasn't been a single GOP president since Nixon who didn't leave the country in debt, including Bush II, who managed to do so even when he'd inherited a surplus. Anybody who's really serious about the deficit would advocate letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire and reducing the Pentagon's budget.

[mike dougles]

09:54 AM on 04/06/2011

Rep Conyers, I have one thing to point out to you.

The GOP house today is trying to pass a budget your party failed to take up last year.

If your party had done its job last year we would not be here today.

You sir need to go talk to former speaker pelosi.

[Oldchef]

10:32 AM on 04/06/2011

GOPers filibustered every attempt to pass the budget, remember?

[mike dougles]

10:38 AM on 04/06/2011

There is no filibuster in the House, remember?
The house never even passed the budget.

[mike dougles]

11:57 AM on 04/06/2011

So they can pass Obamacare but not a budget, sad.

[shadow322]

01:18 PM on 04/06/2011

Have you forgotten the state of the union when President Obama took office? President Bush and his fellow Republicans had just given hundreds of BILLIONS of tax payer's dollars to bail out our for-profit banks, then their CEO's GAVE THEMSELVES hundreds of millions of tax payer's dollars for being so cunning. Yeh - you've got a lot to talk about. Just don't count on me to be there. I have an adversity to hippocracy.

[iflew]

09:54 AM on 04/06/2011

Sometimes the people do surprise us by voting in their own self best.

St. Louis Mo has a rapidly declining central core population, while it has major employment. There are lots of workers, tourists, and entertainment consumers, but few live downtown. It has to maintain police, fire, streets, sewers etc for the people who work, visit and play there.

The gazillionaires wanted to abolish the earning tax because they didn't want to pay it on themselves or the cost of payroll records for their workers, so spent tons of TV "infommercial money" to get it recalled.

The vote as of yesterday was 88% to retain.

[Pablo175]

09:50 AM on 04/06/2011

Why didn't you pass a budget pre-election?

[Oldchef]

10:34 AM on 04/06/2011

Republican filibusters.

[blackraisin]

12:20 PM on 04/06/2011

Spending Bills originate in the house.

[dragn1]

09:41 AM on 04/06/2011

SO I guess when you and the senate critters did not pass a budget you were yelling at them. Oh wait it is ok for the Dem saints to do nothing.

[Oldchef]

10:35 AM on 04/06/2011

No I was hollering at the Repubs for filibustering absolutely everything.

[Sunstreaked]

09:40 AM on 04/06/2011

Trying to make cuts on the backs of the already poor and disenfranchised without touching the sacred cow of defense is penny-wise, dollar-foolish thinking.

Unless, of course, the politicians and the tea party are just fine with more homeless, more hungry, and more poor.

Which, apparently, they are.

[jdaron23]

11:00 AM on 04/06/2011

Of course they are. It would be more people they wouldn't have to worry or care about.

[redchair2]

12:01 PM on 04/06/2011

I've always been a little confused about this - what do they think hungry, desperate people are going to do? Do they honestly believe those people will just sit in their house and starve to death? Has it ever entered their mind that people will start stealing - and not just from grocery stores. People will start robbing houses - and they sure as heck aren't coming to rob my house! That's the good thing about not having much, they won't be coming to this neighborhood to get the goods. Just food for thought.

[bogard]

09:27 AM on 04/06/2011

The dems completely failed to submit and vote on a fiscal 2011 budget by Oct. 2010, having large majorities in the Senate and House during 2010. They are the ones to blame for this budget crisis. Period. And let's not forget, the dems took the House in 2006 (seated in 2007). So who's to blame for this fiscal mess? The dems. Any other assessment is pure politics and fantasy.

[dawn wetherill]

09:40 AM on 04/06/2011

But yet these brainwashed, lockstep liberals will come on here and insist its all the republicans fault.

I dont think that even works for moderate dems anymore. After reading page after page on here about the Obama 2012 run, i have to say 60 to 70 % of the comments were negitive towards him.

[mike dougles]

09:55 AM on 04/06/2011

Fanned.

[Trustfunded1]

09:06 AM on 04/06/2011

Pandering for votes with subsidies and entitlement programs that aren't mathmaticly sustainable puts politicians at risk.

[debblack]

09:32 AM on 04/06/2011

I assume you are talking about the agricultural subsidies; oil company subsidies, and wall street subsidies? I am entitled to the money that I have been putting into Medicare and Social Security. That is why they are called entitlements. NOT because You are paying my way, but because I have been planning ahead, and paying for my Medical Insurance for when I retire, as well, as putting aside money to assist my income, when I am no longer working. I as most other Americans, have doen this with every paycheck, since I was 16, for myself. NOW I am supposed to feel ashamed because I have been paying ahead, planning for the future, and it will be time for me take the benefits I HAVE PAID FOR and am entitled too? Medicare and Social Security are not free programs, each individual worker pays for their own over their lifetime. How about looking at income caps? Why do people with incomes over 1 million dollars a year, AFTER they retire, need Social Security or Medicare? That is the real reason Republicans want to do away with it, Their masters are wealthy and resent having to put money aside for themselves for Medicare or Social Security, which they beleive they will not need, because of their wealth. Ask the wealthy to give up Social Security and Medicare now, and see what happens.

[dragn1]

09:57 AM on 04/06/2011

I am all for farm and oil and methanol subsidies going away. Go to it. You however did not pay for your SSI or Medicare you payed for the people who retired before you. As for means testing I will go one better if you have a income of 500000 a year or more then a million in other then land monies you do not get SSI and Medicare I agree. Also stop giving money to nations. Sorry we are tapped out ask Saudi Arabia. No money to the UN. 30% across the board cuts to all programs including defense. That would be a nice start.

[PoloniumMan]

08:52 AM on 04/06/2011

Rep Conyers wrote, "Based on their absolute refusal to compromise on the Federal budget, Tea Party adherents in the Republican party will force the government to shutdown at the end of Friday."

He should have included, "and the Democratic party's inability to pass a budget back in October like we were supposed to."