What makes the House Republicans’ decision to shut down the federal government an immoral and unconscionable “threat” rather than an ordinary political disagreement? The answer is simple.
House Republicans who do not have the votes to repeal Obamacare through the processes of democracy threatened to close the federal government, to throw hundreds of thousands of innocent government employees out of work, and to damage the nation’s economy unless the Senate and the President acceded to their demands. By threatening to wreak havoc with the national interest and inflicting serious harm on hard-working, loyal public employees, they are attempting to coerce rather than to persuade the government into doing what they want. The House Republicans, in short, are holding the nation itself hostage to their demands. This is not democratic governance. This is extortion, plain and simple. In any other circumstance, this would be criminal conduct.
Geoffrey R. Stone, Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law,
University of Chicago
It didn’t have to come to this. The showdown between House Republicans and the White House, with all the phony drama seasoned with buckets of crocodile tears, wasn’t inevitable. President Obama has been working on this for four years as if the Republicans didn’t exist. The mess is the natural consequence of the no-compromise strategy he has taken from Day One.
Washington Times editorial
“Real people,” as we like to call those with whom we are in agreement, are suffering. Government workers — good as well as real people — are being punished capriciously. They have an implied contract with Congress: We do the work, you pay the wage. Congress is now violating that agreement. It is unconscionable.
Richard Cohen,
The New York Times
Senator Ted Cruz (R.-TX) is doing grassroots America an enormous favor on several fronts. By standing resolute in his assertion that Obamacare can and should be defunded, he is showing the way to dismantle a malignant socialist monster that fundamentally threatens the American ideal. Perhaps of greater importance is that in the process he is smoking out those liberal Trojan Horses who have infested the GOP, and who will ensure its ineffectiveness for as long as they are allowed to remain in its midst.
Christopher G. Adamo,
conservative columnist