Republicans may be holding a gun to our heads, but wealthy conservative groups are holding a gun to theirs.
If GOP House members don't do what they are told, organizations like Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, Heritage Action and the Senate Conservatives Fund are willing and able to spend millions of dollars to fund a primary challenge against them.
These extremist groups are keeping track of each vote Republicans make. Want to end the government shutdown? Want to increase the debt ceiling? Then you are a traitor to the conservative cause and they will replace you in the next election. Moderation and cooperation are sins for the true believers. The consequence is a primary race to knock you off the GOP ticket.
Estimates are that these Republican groups are now spending more money on television ads against fellow Republicans than Democrats. As stated by The New York Times editorial board, "These groups, all financed with secret and unlimited money, feed on chaos and would like nothing better than to claim credit for pushing Washington into another crisis." While the shutdown will prove costly for our nation and ordinary Americans, each crisis brings them another opportunity for fundraising.
Remember when Republicans pretended to be concerned about jobs? Millions of jobs have been impacted by the shutdown. Remember when Republicans said they were concerned with spending? The shutdown will cost local and state governments billions of dollars in lost revenue and will not only increase the national debt, but has already decreased revenue for thousands of small businesses dependent on the spending of furloughed employees. Maryland, for example, is losing an estimated $2 million per day.
Remember when Republicans said that they were protectors of the Constitution? Well, there are ways to have your voice heard in a constitutional government. One is by passing laws. A second way is in the courts. A third way is with elections. In all three of these, Republicans lost the battle on the Affordable Care Act. The Act was passed by a majority vote in Congress; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the new law was constitutional; and Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee running on the repeal of Obamacare, lost to President Obama, the architect of the Affordable Care Act.
As stated by Michael Tomasky, writing for The Daily Beast, "You don't get to lose a political battle three times and then later come back and say, 'We're going to shut the government down if you won't change this law that we failed to stop three times.'" He added, "You want to change a law that passed that you don't like, go out and win some elections and overturn it. Write a new law. That's how it works. Don't threaten our economy and force hundreds of thousands of people to go without paychecks."
The Senate has had a budget in hand for months, but Republicans in the House have refused to meet in conference to work out the differences. Since Obama won a second term, their strategy has been to use this budget and a potential government shutdown to defund the Affordable Care Act. Let's be clear, Republicans have no interest in working with Obama to make the Affordable Care Act better so millions of uninsured Americans can afford health care insurance; their goal is and always has been to destroy it.
A statement by U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., sums up the situation that the GOP finds itself in: "We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." It appears that "what that even is" has shifted from the destruction of the ACA to more budget cuts to social programs.
According to a recent poll, 72 percent of Americans said they were against the shutdown, including 49 percent of Republicans who should be horrified and embarrassed by the behavior of their representatives in Congress. The sad reality is that at least 51 percent of Republicans are not.
