Shutdown Blues & The Promise of Reform in 2014

Yes, it’s been quiet here, as I warned it would be after the election.  There may be another post on that later.

Shutdown.  Blah, blah…  All the stuff from the webs.  Been posting a ton of stuff on the Facebook page about this…

But this is where we may see some change in the future.  Maybe things needed to get this bad in D.C. before real change in Congress was possible.

First, a little about how this happened, in my eyes, at least. 

The Tea Partiers who are pushing this are concerned about jobs, this is a job retention strategy.  Their jobs, yes, self-preservation, yes, but that’s what it is.

The districts that elected them want to see some action against Obama and Obama care is about the only real policy / legislation they can find true fault with.  If they don’t do what they are doing, a lot of these radicals will be voted out and replaced with another round of amateurs who will flounder in futility as badly as the current crop of self proclaimed patriots.

Now, yes.  Anger against the GOP over this fiasco may cost some Republicans from more balanced, moderate districts their jobs in 2014, but it won’t be the far, far right minority.

This may be enough to toss the House back to the Dems, which may actually lead to a functioning Congress for a while.

But it doesn’t fix the problem.  The real problem is the procedural rules in both houses.  These arcane and, often, insane rules emerged over decades as one party or the other struggled against the domination of the other.

A silver lining to come out of all of this may be that rules reform could be a real winning campaign issue in 2014.  Usually, when the minority party comes into power, they, for many reasons, leave this stuff. 

However, I think candidate that campaign on reform could really do well in 2014, which may or may not lead to reform actually happening, but let’s cross one bridge at a time here.  For the GOP, this may be a critical strategy.  Yeah, my party broke the country, but I want to fix it.  Depending on how bad things get, this may be the only strategy they have.

If this comes to pass, then this current fiasco may lead to some really positive change down the  road.  And it really will take a disaster to make such change possible.  But maybe it will be worth it, in the long run.

For there to be any hope of reform, though, things are going to have to get a lot worse first.  If this stalemate is resolved soon, and if we end up not defaulting on our debts, then the electorate will have forgotten these events 13 months from now.  Sad but true.

And make no mistake, this is exactly why this is happening right now.

I am not rooting for disaster.  But, if it comes, then this will be my happy thought as I rummage through the dumpsters trying to keep the boys fed.