The Tea Party Wanted a Shutdown

If there had been a governmental shutdown, you could blame it on the right-wing Tea Partiers in Congress. While they may not constitute a majority of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, they carry more weight than their numbers would justify. Leaders like John Boehner are fearful of confrontation with these ideologues who would have no compunction about attacking fellow Republicans. Many of the Tea Party fanatics came to Washington by defeating more moderate Republicans.

Michele Bachmann is a good example of the kind of person produced by the far right. In a speech before anti-abortion demonstrators she made it clear that she has no problem with a governmental shutdown. Like all Tea Party people, she has a hatred for the government and a desire to diminish its power. A total shutdown would not bother her at all.

Bachmann and other Tea Party representatives voted against the continuing resolution that kept the government running when the parties reached a settlement of the budget dispute on April 8. Bachmann voted against an earlier continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown. She said that she did it because it didn’t defund Planned Parenthood and “Obamacare.” She called abortion the “watershed issue of our time” and said she’s prepared to fight “eyeball-to-eyeball” to defund Planned Parenthood in the next continuing resolution. The budget compromise reached on April 8 left the issue of funding Planned Parenthood for another day.

Those who want to defund Planned Parenthood are not doing so because of the budget or the deficit. For them it is a purely ideological issue. They object to Planned Parenthood because offices of Planned Parenthood provide abortions. Under federal law, Planned Parenthood is not allowed to use any federal money to fund abortions, but the Tea Party people hate the organization even though it does a great deal of good by providing other health services to women. The simple fact is that, as Senator Chuck Schumer said, the fanatical right-wingers of the Republican Party would relish a governmental shutdown in order to flex their muscles and demonstrate their ability to force their ultra-conservative agenda on the nation. They ignore the fact that a majority of Americans support the right to choose abortion.

The Tea Partiers are acting like children. If they can’t get their way they will not play at all. They do not seem to understand that in order to get things done in Washington it is often necessary to compromise. In the middle of a financial slowdown with millions of people out of work, they were willing to add to the rolls of the unemployed by laying-off approximately 800,000 government workers. Their unthinking negligence could have had an enormously adverse affect on the economy of America. Not only would many government departments be shut down, but thousands of private companies which depend on government business would be severely damaged.

Defense Secretary Gates said that if there was a government shutdown, troops would receive half a paycheck for the first two weeks. After that, troops wouldn’t be paid until a deal was reached in Washington to fund the government. Considering the fact that most military people do not get very high pay, a shutdown would cause hundreds of thousands of them great hardship. In a shutdown, many thousands of civilian employees of the military would be laid off.

The last time the government was shut down, disability benefits and pension claims were held-up for more than 400,000 veterans. New applicants for Social Security benefits were turned away. Clinical research trials at the National Institutes of Health were halted and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped disease surveillance. Nine million people were turned away from national museums, monuments, forests, and parks. The government suspended cleanup at 600 toxic waste sites.

In a shutdown, all of the government departments that provide federal monitoring and inspection would be closed. This would include mine safety inspections, food and drug inspections, and financial regulation and oversight of financial markets. Many other governmental activities would be suspended including visa and passport services, energy information services, and cleanup at 600 toxic waste sites. The Small Business Administration would not process loans for small companies.

If Tea Party fanatics had been able to buffalo the leadership into their extreme positions, the shutdown might have lasted a long time. This could have thrown the economy back into deep recession with millions more Americans out of work. The Democratic and Republican leadership showed statesmanship. The Tea Party extremists demonstrated juvenile irresponsibility.