Panama City, Bay County, Florida
Wednesday, October 16, 2013, 11:30 pm cst
By: Kevin Earl Wood, Email: allunited@bellsouth.net
Tonight, at the end of a day that will live in political infamy, history was made as Senate and House Republicans were brought to their knees and forced to vote in sufficient majority to reopen government or face complete political meltdown in future general and presidential elections.
In the House 143 Republicans still insisted on voting against reopening government in the United States, continuing not to be willing to put aside partisan bickering for the good of the country. It as arguable that the names of these infamous 143 will be remembered during the next and subsequent elections, particularly for the 2014 elections and for president in 2016.
Both Democratic and Republican voters and their families who have suffered during the shutdown and who grew anxious over when, and if, the shutdown would end will certainly remember this suffering at the polls when votes are predictably cast to secure a Senate and Congress for the future that would hopefully never again allow such an American financial crisis to arise.
It is almost guaranteed that Democrats will not allow the voting public to forget these 143 names of congressman who would rather see the United States economy fail rather than putting aside ideological party differences until after the government was put back on its feet for millions of Americans and businesses who will also not forget when they vote in the next elections.
To the contrary, the names of 87 Republican members of Congress will be remembered as voting for reopening the government and crossing the isle with 198 Democrats who also voted to reopen government in a time of national crisis. No Democrats voted against the bill. For those who voted for the bill, this will be a campaign stump plus to remind the voters in the not-too-distant upcoming elections what they did to serve their country.
House Votes to Reopen Government on October 16, 2013
The Senate just earlier this evening passed the bill 81-18 to reopen the government. All 54 members of the Democratic Caucus voted for the bill along with 27 Republicans. Only 18 Senate Republicans voted against the bill. These 18 will join the infamous 143 for a total of 161 Republicans that will be remembered for voting against the security and credit of the United States and the American People.
Shortly after midnight, in the early morning hours of October 17, 2013, President Obama signed the bill into law reopening the government and putting the government back on its feet and back into business, according to the White House.
“Oh Happy Day”, as the song goes, the government is up and running. Disabled U.S. veterans will get their monthly disability checks come November 1, 2013, the National Park System will reopen its doors, barricades at the Veteran’s Memorial in Washington will come down, and there will be business as usual for the United States Government and state programs and businesses that rely on federal funding and that were greatly impacted by the shutdown as well.
Even now that the government has reopened, it will not be forgotten by millions who have financially and emotionally suffered under the unnecessary stress caused by the Republican extremist’s refusal to put a clean bill to the U.S. House floor in the beginning before the shutdown where many accused them of blackmailing the nation and its citizens solely to push on with a doomed course of dismantling and de-funding the Affordable Care Act, dubbed by the Republicans as “Obamacare.”
Republicans have previously failed to dismantle or disable the Affordable Care Act in the House, the Senate, before the U. S. Supreme and in the 2012 presidential election that put President Obama back into the White House. However, the Republicans will predictably continue to hack away at the health care legislation in attempts to dismember it in upcoming congressional sessions and hearings.
One provision affecting the Affordable Care Act was successfully placed in tonight’s bill at Republican insistence during this past day’s deal negotiations that requires those applying for health care subsidies to be required to provide “verification of household income.”
In addition the bill requires that, “[n]ot later than July 1, 2014, the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services shall submit to the Congress a report regarding the effectiveness of the procedures and safeguards provided under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for preventing the submission of inaccurate or fraudulent information by applicants for enrollment in a qualified health plan offered through an American Health Benefit Exchange.”
However, tonight’s ratified deal isn’t a permanent done deal. According to the the bill, which is now law, government funding has only been approved through January 1, 2014 and the debt ceiling is increased only until Feb. 7.
At that time, the American people will most likely again be treated to a new three-ring circus show of political gymnastics and legislative acts that defy gravity.