There is blame in this shutdown…Meanwhile families hit in the gut
We’re educators. When there’s a fight on the playground, we separate the kids and often (and often wrongly) scold both children who point fingers at each other, and say to them so all the playground can hear, “It takes two sides to start a fight, and you are both to blame for throwing punches.”
The truth is, sometimes it just takes one kid to throw the punch and the other kid to defend himself. Which brings us to the government shutdown. And, yes, this is not a playground, and, no, these are not children only hurting themselves.
And, yes, there is someone to blame.
The most radical faction of Republicans in the House of Representatives did not have the votes to rescind the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act that was designed to cover the millions of uninsured in our country and which is, even as we speak, signing up thousands and thousands of hard-working Americans who do not have health insurance for themselves or their families.
The Affordable Care Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives. It passed the U.S. Senate. It was signed by the President of the United States in 2010 and is now the law of the land.
The Republicans in the House who did not want the law of the land to be implemented did not have enough votes to stop it. Even now, they do not have the votes to repeal it as they continually and publicly demonstrate, bringing up for a vote the repeal or defunding or delay of the Affordable Care Act, at last count, (drum roll, please) 42 times.
Forty-two times the House said, “Yes to repeal” and 42 times the Senate said, “No.” That’s the way our democratic process works. As any of my 6thgraders could tell you, both the House and the Senate have to say, “Yes” and then it makes it to the president’s desk. If the president vetoes it, it goes back for a supermajority of 2/3 of both the House and the Senate to become a law.
We have checks. We have balances. This is what Democracy looks liked according to our Constitution. The opponents of the Affordable Care Act do