The Senate, the House, the President signed off on a bill to reopen the federal government and pay the country's debts, for now. All in one day. Just in the nick of time.
But not exactly. It came about $24 billion too late. That's the
estimate of what the U.S. lost in economic activity due to the shutdown alone. The cost as measured by slower growth and higher unemployment is yet to be known. Then there's the yet-to-be-determined direct costs of shutting things down and then starting them up again. All the overtime to catch up with work not done, on top of the guaranteed wages for those furloughed--thanks to the private sector hawks of the House, money for nothing.
But the people who truly pay--who always pay for the foolishness of generals and legislators who are focused on their own greed and ego--are the children who lost nutritional support and Head Start, the sick, the old, the powerless, including those who have lost jobs and income as twisted byproducts of what the rotten House wrought.
We all pay for their folly. Electing fools is not funny, it's not entertainment, it's not what outrageous thing will they say today. Yet politics and the political media on all sides lives by this, prospers by this, become stars through this.
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