The game is still a game
By Jim Surber

There are two distinct, partisan, schools of thought on who is really to blame for the federal government’s current shutdown. According to the President, it’s the ideologically obstinate, congressional Republicans who will do anything to undermine the Affordable Care Act, the signature achievement of his presidency. For those same Republicans, it’s the president who deserves all the blame by refusing to compromise one bit on a policy measure that even his administration admits is less than ready-for-primetime.

The shutdown has created awkward and costly side effects for some people and businesses. But the irony of this entire mess is that if the shutdown continues for any length of time, with most peoples’ lives being unaffected, it makes a stellar case for the benefits of small government.

Many common folk embrace and approve the Affordable Care Act, but detest “Obamacare,” even though they are the same program.

Republicans say we are spending way too much and we need to cut spending, starting with things that are barely a percentage of our debt. (They won't touch National Defense which is 1/3 of the US budget.)

Likewise, farm subsidies, tax breaks and welfare for large corporations, funding for the NSA, welfare for foreign countries and pork projects by congressmen to their own districts are also taboo subjects. The upcoming expiration of the “debt ceiling” will be the trial by fire.

Speaker John Boehner declared on national media last Sunday, “This isn’t some damn game.”

Oh, Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a game, created by the US Congress in 1917, and you know it. This game was created by Congress, for Congress, and only Congress can solve it.

It works like this: Congress mandates what the President can tax, spend and borrow. Congress then purposely miscalculates the math so that the President, like clockwork, has to ask Congress for more borrowing.

Ninety-six years ago, Congress created a reoccurring problem that only they can solve by negotiating anything they choose. One side merely has to withhold their approval while the other side has to cave in. Both sides play the game, but generally only one side is blamed.

Normally, the game is played relatively quietly every year, but whenever there has been a political regime change or when one side seeks to take advantage, the game becomes much more like hardball.

The game is loved by Congress, because it is a problem that only they can solve. It is loved by the media, because there is no lack of stories and opinions that can result. Some may even say that it is loved by government workers, since they generally get paid for doing nothing.

The game grabs our attention, only because the stakes are so high. The full faith and credit of the alleged richest nation on earth makes a most impressive prize.

Also ironically, a default on the country’s debt would not only be catastrophic, it would be unconstitutional.

Those that continually talk about the Constitution would do well to read it, including the fourteenth amendment. They would learn that there is no debt ceiling and any argument about the debt ceiling is moot.

“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” (Section 4)

To me, this says that if we owe it, we must pay it.

It is likely that those who finance and control these political gamesters are mortified at the real prospect of the nation’s default and will not tolerate it, regardless of which side is to blame. They will ultimately prevail.

It is most likely that the potential default will be transformed into again kicking the can a little farther down the road in preparation for the next game.