My Sunday Feeling

Once more into the breach dear friends, once more.

The great line from Henry the V as he leads the troops into battle against the 
French comes to my mind as we approach September 30.  As it stands right now, that is the last day that the United States Government is fully funded.  This is because there are a small number of Republican legislators that would rather "defund" the government than to allow an appropriations bill to fund the next fiscal year that begins on October 1 if said bill contains funding for Planned Parenthood.  

Regardless of your opinion of PP, is this anyway to run a government?  If you call this a government.

I went through 3-4 of these when I worked for Uncle.  Talk about a pain in the ass.  That's one of the reasons I left when I had the chance.  I didn't want to go through another one. You have to make sure that your cases got covered as well as could be expected.  You had to secure the office.  You were given a script for your voive mail and "out of the office" email message.  Boy, talk about "out of the office."  Technically the office no longer freaking existed.

And even though you aren't allowed to volunteer your services to Uncle, neither are you allowed to work elsewhere either.  A rule which I fully intended to violate if the last shutdown turned into some protracted affair.  And while I wasn't sweating it too much financially, I worried about some of the folks in the clerical or entry level ranks.  Missing a paycheck was a problem for them.  Or at least some of them.  

I'm supposed to get on a plane Friday.  So I got on the Internet to see how a shutdown would affect that.  It won't.  TSA workers are "essential personnel." Folks on pensions wonder if they will get their check Oct 1.  (They will.)  But why should we even have to ask these questions?  What is this?  Greece? Or some other less stable banana republic?

I mean, give me a break.  

Not everybody at the VA hospital is "essential personnel." But the vets will still show up for services.  Not everybody in law enforcement is "essential personnel."  You think the crooks will lay down their weapons until it is once again a fair fight?  

You get my point.  The fact is that most folks expect services from a government that will be there when they pick up the phone to call.  They don't expect to get a recording with some disembodied voice on the other end saying, "I'm sorry.  Your call is important to us.  But we are shut down.  Please leave us a message.  We will get back to you, well, we don't know when.  In case of an emergency...well...we don't have an answer for that either.  Have a good day."

I read somewhere that the last shutdown cost the taxpayers 25 billion before the catfight in the House got resolved.  And all because about 20 Tea Party types there can't get to yes on practically anything that might resemble compromise.  Otherwise known as "governance."

Think this will get better? You must be on drugs.  Speaker of the House John Boehner just announced he is retiring effective the last day of October.  As one of the local political writers said on Facebook that the manure was about "to hit a bigger and faster fan." Or, as I said, the inmates are gonna get their shot at running the asylum.

Once more into the breach indeed.  

Is this anyway to run a damn government?