The Looming Shutdown

Tomorrow could be an interesting day in my world of forecasting business trends.  This Government has done pretty much everything possible to screw up our feeble recovery.  From the Republicans' Obamacare fight (ignoring the larger spending problem - even ADDING to spending merely to repeal Obamacare) to the President's unwillingness to do any negotiation to Harry Reid's idea that negotiation is "give me everything I want, and we'll talk later."

This was wholly unnecessary.  The Republicans zeroed in on Obamacare at the expense of entitlement spending.  They successfully took focus off the President's signature legislation and turned onto themselves....all negative.  The better strategy would have been to force the bill to be implemented as written and focus on bigger spending problems we have; let Obamacare collapse in on itself and propose true free-market solutions to fix the entire mess.

The president has been no better. His list of negotiable items was so short, it could be written on a 1x1 post-it note.  He's claimed a willingness to compromise, but the amount he's been willing to move is so miniscule it's hardly detectible.

And then there's Harry Reid.  He's said he'll talk after the debt ceiling is raised and Sequester 2.0 (I still can't call an 83% open government "shut down") is ended.  This would be like offering to buy a car, getting the seller to sign over the title and handing over the keys, and then negotiating a price several months later.

And who's to blame?  We are.  You and me.  We cast our ballots, and we got what we voted for.  I've talked to several people at conferences lately, and they all say the same thing: elections have consequences.  I guess we have ours.