Since, Ronald Reagan's elevation and the adoption of Piss Down Your Back and Tell You It's Raining Economics (Supply Side economics), the Republican Party has been steadily undermining a Government which helps the Poor and Working Class.
This Government Shutdown was coming all along, Republicans had planned it at least a year ago, and it was so the Republicans could hijack the Budget and use it as a "Forcing Mechanism" to enact their Death to the Poor Budget.
Ah, but the Republicans went of half-cocked thanks to the efforts of Senator Ted Cruz and the anti-Obamacare propaganda they've been spewing for the past 4 years.
Nonetheless, the Shutdown is having ancillary benefits for the crotch-sniffing lapdogs of the Plutocracy.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has currently furloughed 1600 of 1611 workers and almost all case handling including hearings, investigations, inspections, elections and more has come to a halt. This is not a negative to Republicans but a desired outcome.
"There is some good news out of the shutdown, the EPA can't issue new regulations." - Republican Marsha Blackburn.
During the last shutdown, Jonathan Schweitzer, an environmental engineer at the agency, and his team was forced to call off a planned inspection at a sewage treatment plant in the Chicago area.
"During that time the treatment plant violated its discharge limits," he said. "In the long term if we can't review permits and pre-treatment programms, then states and municipalities will likely tend to slack off if nobody is keeping after them as far as their job is concerned protecting the waterways."
Of course, while Republicans hate the EPA and want it eliminated, Chicagoans and other Americans would rather not drink cholera-laden water,
"It stinks," said John O'Grady, a union representative at the EPA's Chicago office. "No one is going to be out inspecting water discharges, or wet lands. Nobody is going to be out inspecting waste water treatment plants, drinking water treatment plants, or landfills - nothing. None of that is going to be done. The employees are absolutely devastated."
The Republicans message has always been the Government doesn't work. After being elected Republicans exert all their power and spend all their energy ensuring that statement comes true.
What this Shutdown helps them do is sow discontent and exasperation amongst the American people and speed up the transfer of the Wealth of Nations into the bank accounts of the 1%.
Already they have gotten President Obama to agree to funding the Government at Sequestration levels, which represents a huge reduction in spending and is a major compromise.
But, Sequestration levels of spending isn't good enough for the Republicans and their Plutocratic Masters. The 1% want nothing less than the complete and total destruction of the New Deal, the Great Society and the any parts of the Government which helps the Poor and Working Class.
The most frightening part is not that President Obama has signaled his agreement to sequestration budget spending but that some neo-liberal advisors to the President are telling him it's his time, that President Obama is the One who can make changes to Social Security or Medicare and that by agreeing to cuts to entitlements he'll secure his legacy.
If President Obama agrees to any real cuts to Social Security or Medicare he will hand a bloody shirt which the Republicans will wave for a hundred years. And he'll go a long way towards ushering in the Era of Neo-Feudalist Domination of America.
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