Please, please, shut it down

The sad fact of this is that Boehner and the Republican leadership in Congress would love to find a way to back down and avoiding a government shutdown, and unfortunately they'll probably be successful. 

The only reason the Democrats are willing to even willing to think about slowing down the spending increases is that they know the Republican base has put Boehner in a position where its hard for him to agree to anything that can't be spun as a cut.

The fact is that the louder the Republican base is in demanding cuts, the more the bargaining position of anyone on the Hill who wants cuts gets.  Its called credible pre-commitment.

Government Shutdown - I Was 15 in 1995

And I remember those cold, scary days when the federal government was shut down.  One of my most traumatic experiences was being molested by a federal convict who was released as a result of the shutdown.  After that molestation and on my way home from school, I was brutally beat by a gang of marauding Mexicans who were on the loose because the border was wide open with the shutdown. 

And when I finally made it home, tired and bleeding, weeping uncontrollably from what I'd been through, I found I didn't have a home.  The U.S.'s defense had been shut down because of the shutdown, and my home town in rural Virginia was destroyed by the Chinese People's Army. 

I've spent the past 16 years trying to recover from those events in late 1995 and early 1996 . . .

Actually, none of that is true at all.  The government shut down and you know what happened - not a whole lot!  Honestly, if there weren't people talking about it on the news 24/7 I'm not sure anyone would have noticed. 

I've been feeling a real disconnect from Washington Republicans as I here about how concerned they are about a shutdown.  I think they completely missed the lesson they should have learned from the 2010 elections:

The federal government discontinuing all non-essential services is not a short-term problem, its the long term goal.