Could we have a budget, please?

Who I blame for the government shutdown.

It sure would be impressive if I could write page upon page exploring why the looming government shutdown would be the fault of this party or of that. My prose would probably be littered with terms like political grandstanding, finger-pointing, deadlock, stalemate, or at the very least controversy. Of course, if I wanted to blame Republicans, I would need a ream to provide ample space to contort facts to my forgone conclusion. Or, if I were a devoted centrist, I could probably use several pages to assign blame all around. But all this supposition is just me burning words.

I blame the whole affair on Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats of the 111th Congress. Had they, with their unbeatable majority, passed the budget by the September 20th deadline, there would be no talk of government shutdown. As it is, last December, Democrats voted to put the whole thing off until March—well into the 112th Congressional term.

As for the argument that the past is past and the issue must be dealt with today, I counter that the Democrats knew exactly what they were doing late last fall and were counting on that argument. So shove it! Oh, and Ezra Klein is an idiot. (Don’t click the link, you already know it’s true.)

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