What if the Government shuts down and nobody notices?

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2014 NOVEMBER VOTE COMING SOON, Barack Obama, Defund, Defund Obamacare, Democrat, Elected Lawmakers, Get RID OF Obamacare, Get rid of the AFA, Government Shutdown, Healthcare, House, Polls show majority does NOT WANT Obamacare, Posturing, POTUS, Repeal Obamacare, Republican, Senate, Shut Down the Government

“You’d be amazed how much government you never miss.” ~ Mitch Daniels

TO BOTH Republicans and Democrats, let me ask you this — exactly WHO GETS HURT IF THE GOVERNMENT IS SHUT DOWN?

What happens to the United States when the lights go out?

I’ve lived through five government shutdowns. There were three shutdowns during Ronald Reagan’s presidency and two government shutdowns while Bill Clinton was president. And, if I hadn’t read about the events in the newspaper, I literally would have had no reason to be aware the shutdowns were going on.

My husband’s memory of the impact of those government shutdowns is the same as mine. He ‘heard that it was happening’, BUT, nothing in his life changed.

Just in case my husband and I are dunces who wouldn’t notice if an atomic bomb hit Goshen, so long as ‘our own house was left standing’, I decided to interview others.

SURELY, if government shutdowns were the huge catastrophes the media is leading us to believe they are — people would remember the horrors.

Here are the results of my survey…

“I remember something being said on the news about a shutdown,” said 80-year-old Ann, “but during that time my husband and I were looking for a vacation home in Arizona. We were pretty busy.”

“I heard about the government being shut down,” said 80-something-year-old Al, “but it didn’t change my life in any way.”

A family member that has lived in Washington D.C. for several years said, “Once or twice a year D.C. gets clobbered with a winter storm. When that happens, the government issues an order for all ‘non-essential’ people to go home and the city empties out. The government is shut down — sometimes for a week at a time. And no one notices. I have always marveled at that migration and wondered: If these are ‘non-essential people’, then what are we paying them for?”

Which brings me back to the crux of the problem. Which is what Mitch Daniels said, ““You’d be amazed how much government you never miss.”” This especially becomes evident when 50% of government workers (described by the Obama administration as ‘nonessential’) can be furloughed and NOTHING changes for the majority of the country.

Republicans: you’ve been given a ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME chance to match policy with your BOLD RHETORIC. The House of Representatives is where spending originates. House Republicans HAVE BEEN HANDED control to delay, defund or repeal Obamacare in concert with SERIOUS SHRINKAGE of the size of the federal government. Assuming what’s likely true, that President Obama and the Senate won’t go along with GOP plans, a Republican House in control of spending will get to starve Obama’s signature legislation, and then with a government shutdown that decidedly does not mean a shutdown of the federal government (Social Security checks will go out, the military will be funded through IOUs, the IRS will for good or bad remain functional), a happy realization gets forced upon the citizenry, that life goes on RATHER SWIMMINGLY without the Leviathan running on all cylinders.

To quote Dale Carnegie: “The person who goes the farthest is the one who is WILLING TO DO AND DARE. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.”

I’m going to be blunt, if the Republicans aren’t willing to do everything in their power to defund, delay, or repeal Obamacare — INCLUDING SHUTTING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT — voting Republican means no more than being a Bears’ fan instead of a Colts’ fan. You are voting for a ‘team name’ not for differences in basic ideology.

The Polls:

USA Today/Pew Poll: More Americans than ever, don’t want Obamacare

Rasmussen Reports: The majority of Americans favor a government shutdown to funding Obamacare.

Rasmussen, ABC/Washington Post, CNN/Opinion Research, Fox News, NBC/WSJ, and USA Today/Pew Research Polls: ALL show the majority of Americans DO NOT WANT Obamacare.

OVERWHELMINGLY — Indiana’s voters willing to risk government shutdown to derail ‘Obamacare’

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Continuing Resolution, CR, Dan Coats, Defund, Defund Obamacare, Government Shutdown, House, Jackie Walorski, Joe Donnelly, Marlin Stutzman, OBAMACARE, Senate, September 30 Deadline

To understand why so many conservatives in Congress are willing to risk a government shutdown in their quest to cut spending and derail “Obamacare,” take a look at Indiana and the state’s crop of young Republicans in the U.S. House Representatives.

The voters in their home districts gave them a simple message at town hall meetings in August:“Stand up to President Barack Obama and block his health insurance reforms.”

Indiana constituents don’t support the health care law and are insisting their elected officials vote to defund it.

The efforts of Indiana’s House Republicans are certain to be rejected by Democrats. Obama has already issued a veto threat. So the ensuing fight will heighten the risk of a government shutdown or debt default which will unnerve financial markets.

That is a risk that many conservatives see as essential, with key parts of the law due to take effect in October.

______________________________________________________________________

“The American people want this law stopped one way or another,” Representative Marlin Stutzman of northeast Indiana told Reuters. “We are willing to hold out on this one.”  _______________________________________________________________

Republicans argue that the Affordable Care Act will cost jobs, reduce employee working hours and increase health premiums and are focused on the projected spending increase which would nudge the sprawling U.S. healthcare system to over $3 trillion in total spending for 2014, representing a cost of $9,697 for every man, woman and child, or 18.3 percent of the U.S. economy! (Source of information is Reuters. Click HERE to reference.)

Over the longer term, healthcare spending growth would accelerate to 6.5 percent by 2022, when the industry would hit the $5 trillion mark and represent 19.9 percent of gross domestic product.

Indiana’s Republicans are willing to make tough choices and to accept the accompanying risks.

These Republicans do not fit the Democratic caricature of conservative Tea Party novices who are holding the House hostage. Several have experience in Indiana state government, making tough budget choices under former Republican Governor Mitch Daniels.

Daniel’s success in turning around the state’s finances prompted speculation that Daniels might make a presidential bid in 2012, but he opted against running.

Under Mitch Daniels’ leadership, Indiana cut taxes and built up a surplus. Now it consistently ranks highest in the Midwest in business climate surveys, while neighbors Illinois and Michigan struggle financially. But Indiana’s unemployment rate, at 8.3 percent, is a full percentage point above the national average as its manufacturing base struggles to recover from the recession.

The experience at the state level has driven the Indiana Republicans in Congress to try to replicate the same formula in Washington.

Three members – Todd Rokita, Messer and Jackie Walorski – now serve on the House Budget Committee, a big presence for a state with only 6.5 million residents. Todd Young switched from that panel to the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. And Stutzman, another Budget Committee alumnus, saw his standing in the caucus rise after the House passed his plan to separate the $74 billion food stamp program from a long-stalled farm bill, a move aimed at shrinking the nutrition subsidies.

“I think we’ve been able to prove in this state, statistically, that balanced budgets create stable economies, create jobs, and there is a way out of the mess we’re in at the federal level,” said Walorski, who once described herself as a “pit bull” in the state capitol.

Freshman Representative Susan Brooks, a former U.S. attorney in Indiana, has local, state and federal government experience, most recently as general counsel for the state’s network of community colleges.

The group often repeats a Daniels mantra: “You’d be amazed at how much government you won’t miss.”

Three years after President Obama signed his signature health care overhaul, Americans are MORE negative toward it than they have ever been. Disapproval of the president on the issue has reached a new high. Here are findings from a USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll.

INDIANA VOTERS ARE WATCHING

The seven Indiana Republicans face little threat of losing their seats to Democrats in 2014 if they dig in on the budget and Obamacare. The congressional boundaries some of them helped redraw in 2011 concentrated the state’s two Democrats into central Indianapolis and the industrial northwest corner. The Republican districts are now largely carpeted in corn and soybeans, giving them a naturally conservative rural base.

“Indiana is an agrarian state. A bumper crop one year could be met with drought the next, so you better focus on long-term goals,” said Wendy Dant Chesser, president of One Southern Indiana, the Chamber of Commerce in New Albany, Indiana.

Instead, any threat is more likely to come from the right if they are too soft on spending. The influential conservative group Club for Growth, headed by former Indiana Republican congressman Chris Chocola, is watching their every vote.

Similar sentiments expressed in conservative Republican districts across the country have put members in no mood to compromise on the fiscal deadlines.

Rokita, a second-term congressman who boasts that his 2010 budget as Indiana secretary of state was at 1987 levels, said the Obamacare defunding vote was “a reasonable reflection of what my constituents wanted of me. I think we’re best when we’re bold,” he said. “I keep trying to preach that to our leadership.”

Opposition to ObamaCare — already wildly unpopular when it was passed — is becoming increasingly strong and widespread. In my opinion, it’s about time MORE politicians follow Indiana’s elected representative’s example and deeply consider WHO they SHOULD BE fighting for. (HINT TO LAWMAKERS: The WHO should NOT be your pharmaceutical and insurance political donors.)

Sources:
Red State
The Indiana Gazette
Rasmussen Reports
Reuters
Political Outcast

Did YOUR members of Congress sign the “Defund ObamaCare” letter? Find out here…

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Affordable Care Act, Dan Coats, Defund Obamacare, Jackie Walorski, Joe Donnelly, Marlin Stutzman, OBAMACARE, Senate, U.S. House of Representatives

The Continuing Resolution (CR) that allows funding for the federal government expires on September 30th. It must be renewed in order for the doors to stay open in Washington. The CR is the best chance we will get to withdraw funds from ObamaCare. This can be done by attaching bills by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) or Congressman Tom Graves (R-GA) to the CR, which will totally defund ObamaCare.

But for the Cruz/Graves effort to have teeth, Republicans in both chambers of Congress must all be committed to absolutely refusing to vote for any spending bill that contains funding for ObamaCare.  Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC) are leading the charge to get their colleagues to commit to this approach, by putting their signatures to a letter affirming that they will refuse to vote for a CR that contains ObamaCare funding.

Support for the Cruz/Graves bills is absolutely meaningless without ALSO SIGNING THE LEE/MEADOWS LETTER. Harry Reid and his Democrats will have no incentive to compromise unless they know the Republicans are willing to take a hard stance – even allowing the government to be shut down, if necessary – in order to stop the catastrophically unworkable and unaffordable health care law from taking effect this January.

Unless you want Obamacare, it is ESSENTIAL that you call Congress Members that are posturing a  lot, but actually doing NOTHING to PREVENT Obamacare from going into effect. TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

Don’t put off calling your elected representative because you think your voice doesn’t matter. The onslaught of calls over Syria, probably more than ANYTHING ELSE, stopped Obama from taking us into a war that could have led us into another Middle East quagmire or worse.

Click HERE to READ MORE and to see where your Congress members REALLY stand on Obamacare. (SPOILER: BOTH Jackie Walorski AND Marlin Stutzman not only signed Meadows’ letter, they co-sponsored Graves’ bill — kudos to Jackie and Marlin. As for our Senators, ahem!)

If you want Obamacare gone or at least delayed…

Contact Senator Dan Coats: (202) 224-5623
Contact Senator Joe Donnelly: (202) 224-4814