Sigh, "lowest common denominator politics"... but do people really care?

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COMMENTS: 
*  So same dog and pony show, and at the end of the day, nothing will be done about the deficit, cutting bloated bureaucracies, cutting foreign aid to countries that hate US, pork barrel projects, etc.
*  The House will muddle through with a lousy budget because nobody is willing to be held accountable, reelection and all. The Senate will screw around and argue about rules while maintaining that they are the party of power. The end result will be massive deficit spending and nothing will be addressed, all while blaming the other party. Vote smarter America. Both parties are S crewing us.
*  We desperately need term limits.  We need to make it unlawful for any member of Congress to pledge to anything other than representing the people of the United States. We need to make it unlawful for any member of Congress to use the knowledge that they gain from their position to buy or sell stock, interest in companies etc. (sort of a insider trader thing).  And they should be prohibited from working as a lobbyist for a minimum of 18 years from the time they leave office.  That being said it is unfortunate that the current Congress is better known for their ability to clog government to an unproductive standstill than they are for serving the US public and they are better appreciated when they are absent from Washington in that it limits the damage that they do to our country.
*  It's more of the same...they'll just take another recess. Don't you people know it's hard work not doing anything and getting paid for it? Yet, these politicians are the same people whining about welfare when they are the biggest recipients. I guess they don't like competition.
*  Looking at the current batch of clowns we call Congress, I'm afraid every day. No one is safe, except the special interest groups that dictate what these idiots do.
    *  Those 'special interest groups' believe that they bought their Congress person, fair and square, under the rules of the Citizens United case.
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Congress is back. Be very afraid.
By Bill McColl, September 8, 2015

Congress is back from its long summer holiday, and members won’t have much time to get back into the swing of things. That’s because yet ANOTHER government shutdown could be looming if Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on a spending bill by the end of the month, when the current deal expires.

But as Yahoo Finance Columnist Rick Newman reminds us--been there, done that.

“We’re probably going to hear the rhetoric of a shutdown, all these threats,” he notes. “Honestly, don’t Americans just tune it out at this point?”

Still, Newman believes we’re unlikely to have a repeat of what we saw two years ago in October, when disagreement over the funding of Obamacare closed down parts of the federal government for two weeks.

“I think the threat of an actual shutdown is a lot lower than it has been in the past,” he argues. “Part of the reason for that is Republicans now control the Senate and Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader, has been loud and clear in saying ‘We’re in charge of the Senate, we’re going to pass budgets, we’re going to fund the government, we’re going to make things work.’ And if we end up back where we were when the Democrats ran the Senate and just obstructionism, it would look really bad for Republicans, because it would prove they were not able to do what they said they were going to do.”

Newman adds there’s another reason why a shutdown probably won’t happen.

“That would factor into the presidential campaign, which of course is hot and heavy at this point even though the election isn’t for more than a year,” he explains. “So I don’t think we’re going to see Republicans wanting to shut down the government.”

However, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to have to go through the typical melodrama in Washington.

“You’re going to see all the jockeying, all the last-minute negotiations, down to the wire type stuff,” he suggests. “A lot of bloviating but not much to worry about.”

Newman feels this hardly leads to good governance.

“It’s lowest common denominator politics, which is basically we will pass things we absolutely must pass when we have no other choice,” he says.

But Newman doesn’t think most people really care, anyway.

“As frustrating and infuriating as it is, the economy just kind of keeps humming,” he points out. “So I think Americans might say go ahead, shut it down, we’re used to your antics in Washington and just carry on.”
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