Reign of Pain - Shutdown!

Sometime late Monday or early Tuesday, as I was getting ready to go fishing, the US Congress and the Administration failed to come to agreement as to how to fund the government. The proximate cause was the Republican controlled House of Representatives being unwilling to accept a continuing resolution (not even a real budget) containing funds for the individual mandate provision of the Adorable Affordable Health Care Act Obamacare, while the Democrat controlled Senate (as well as the President who ultimately gets to vote with a veto pen) refuse to accept one without the funds.  The result is a shutdown of the majority of the Federal Government until some kind of agreement is reached.  It is not the purpose of this post to explore the pros and cons of the arguments of either side, although, of course, I have my opinions, which shouldn't surprise you.

No, the purpose of this point is to examine how various groups reacted to the shutdown:

Wall Street shrugged.

After more than a week of declining stock prices over worries that political gridlock would result in a shutdown, investors bid up stock prices on Tuesday at the reality and took in stride closures that threw hundreds of thousands of federal employees out of work.

The Federal Bureaucracy and the Administration (but I commit redundancy) warned of all possible negative effects, and appeared to go to great lengths to cause some non-goverment workers, or perhaps we should call them some of them ex-government workers suffering and aggravation.  No where was this more apparent in the WWII Veterans Memorial. 

The WWII Memorial, for short, is a relatively new memorial on the Mall in Washington D.C.  An entirely outdoor structure, with no real entrances or staff, and almost entirely funded entirely by private funds, the National Park Service declared it closed, and barricaded it (or Barrycaded it, if you like) in the face of a group of WWII veterans who traveled from Mississippi to visit it. Remember, WWII ended in 1945 so few veterans of that war are much below 90 years old. Even pleas from the veterans congressmen, Rep. Palazzo (R) to the White House were rebuffed.

The veterans arrived, and with a bit of theatrical civil disobedience, aided by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) "stormed" the Barrycades (wheel chairs and all) and saw their memorial, despite threats of arrest.

Meanwhile back in Congress, 164 Democratic congressmen and congresswomen (don't forget the women), filibustered (I know it doesn't fit perfectly, but it's close) an attempt by the Republican controlled House to pass a separate bill funding the Veteran's administration and Veteran's benefits. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, my own representative, Stenny "Tax and Spend" Hoyer was among them.