Federal Government Shutdown! GOP vs. Women’s Rights!

From most accounts, it appears that the Democrarts and the Republicans are battling not over numbers on the budget after all but over policy matters. Senator Harry Reid stated in effect after four meetings with House Speaker Boehner and President Obama that the numbers had basically been agreed to but other issues were standing in the way.

At midnight tonight, Friday, April 8, tonight, the Federal government will no longer have spending rights to run many operations of the government. Eight-hundred thousand Federal govenment workers will be laid off, no paper tax forms will be processed by the IRS, no new passports will be issued, no FHA loans will be approved, SBA loans will be stalled, military pay for troops will not be given, National Parks and Museums will be closed, states will be affected by not receiving their federal subsidies, and other things run by the Federal government will be affected if the shutdown occurs. Social Security checks should not be affected as most of them are direct deposits and evidently from sources not included in regular bugetary calculations.

The figure reportedly reached, but not agreed to by Speaker Boehner at his short press conference this morning was thirty-eight billion in cuts, it was reported that the Republicans wanted thirty-three billion dollars. The stumbling block is said to be where the cuts would come from, not the numbers themselves. The Republicans want to defund Planned Parenthood which they accuse of performing abortions. There is a law which states that no federal monies can be used for carrying out abortions, Planned Parenthood as reported has separate monies which are used when there is any abortion procedure performed, which are said to be limited. The federal monies, they say never get used for those procedures. Other women’s health care issues such as counseling, mammograms, and birth control pill issuance are the main functions of Planned Parenthood not abortions. But the Republicans say the agency is involved in immoral acts and should be defunded. They also want the EPA to stop any regulation of greenhouse gases.

So, here we are with a stalemate in arriving at an agreement on a budget which has five months to run. The fiscal year ends in September, and the Superpower government cannot or has not gotten its act together to pass last year’s budget. How uncomprising can you be just when the economy is trying to pick itself up and continue with a slow recovery? The Democrats share a lot of the blame for this debacle, as they should have put all this together when they controlled both houses of Congress last year. Why would they think that the GOP would co-operate when they can block whatever they choose to and make the Obama administration look impotent, so that they possibly gain more in 2012? Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican minority leader said from the outset, he was going to block this budget and off to the races the GOP went. Stay tuned, they are still talking.