President Obama's speech detailed Republican belligerence in causing the Government shutdown

[ProSense]

President Obama's remarks on government shutdown, Rockville, MD

<...>

Now, I want everybody to understand what's happened, because sometimes when this gets reported on everybody kind of thinks, well, you know, both sides are just squabbling; Democrats and Republicans, they're always arguing, so neither side is behaving properly. I want everybody to understand what's happened here. The Republicans passed a temporary budget for two months at a funding level that we, as Democrats, actually think is way too low because we’re not providing help for more small businesses, doing more for early childhood education, doing more to rebuild our infrastructure. But we said, okay, while we’re still trying to figure out this budget, we’re prepared to go ahead and take the Republican budget levels that they proposed.

So the Senate passed that with no strings attached -- not because it had everything the Democrats wanted. In fact, it had very little that the Democrats wanted. But we said, let’s go ahead and just make sure that other people aren’t hurt while negotiations are still taking place.

So that’s already passed the Senate. And we know there are enough Republicans and Democrats to vote in the House of Representatives for the same thing. So I want everybody to understand this: There are enough Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives today that, if the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, simply let the bill get on the floor for an up-or-down vote, every congressman could vote their conscience -- the shutdown would end today.

The only thing that is keeping the government shut down; the only thing preventing people from going back to work and basic research starting back up, and farmers and small business owners getting their loan -- the only thing that’s preventing all that from happening, right now, today, in the next five minutes, is that Speaker John Boehner won’t even let the bill get a yes-or-no vote, because he doesn’t want to anger the extremists in his party. That’s all. That’s what this whole thing is about.

We’ve heard a lot from congressional Republicans in the past couple of days saying they don’t want this shutdown. Well, there’s a simple way to prove it. Send the bill to the floor, let everybody vote -- it will pass. Send me the bill; I will sign it. The shutdown will be over and we can get back to the business of governing and helping the American people. (Applause.)

It could happen in the next half hour. National parks, monuments, offices would all reopen immediately. Benefits and services would resume again. Hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants who are worrying about whether they’re going to be able to pay the mortgage or pay the car note, they’d start going back to work right away. So my simple message today is: Call a vote. Call a vote.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/03/1243894/-President-Obama-s-remarks-on-government-shutdown-Rockville-MD

Report: Obama Won't Make Policy Concessions In Debt Limit Talks
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023782346

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[Coyotl]

3. Billion Dollar Boehner = We can't afford this guy's idiocy!

[ProSense]

4. Boehner, disrupting people's lives and costing the Government money

because Republicans are terrorists.

[ProSense]

2. Also, Democrats passed a budget nearly 200 days ago

This piece is from July 1:

Republican Obstruction Of Budget Process Hits 100th Day

By Alan Pyke

Monday marks 100 days since the Senate passed a budget amid bipartisan praise of the open process. But initial Republican eagerness to work on a budget has given way to the obstructionism that’s defined the Senate minority under Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Over the past hundred days, Republicans have blocked 15 separate attempts to go to a budget conference with the House of Representatives. Now that the House and Senate have passed their own versions, each is supposed to appoint representatives to a committee that reconciles them into one bill that can be passed by each body and signed by the president.

The handful of Republicans who are blocking a conference on the 2014 budget cite a variety of reasons, including fears that the conference agreement would include a deal preventing another debt ceiling crisis. Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have insisted that the conferees be barred from addressing the debt ceiling, which needs to be increased by this fall to avoid a catastrophic default on U.S. obligations. McConnell, who has praised the use of the debt ceiling as a pressure point for extracting spending cuts despite the tactic’s negative impact on the nation’s credit rating, is one of many prominent Republicans who demanded “regular order” on the budget. In January, he called for a speedy budget conference because “that’s how things are supposed to work around here.”

Yet McConnell has joined the Cruz/Paul/Rubio wing of his caucus in blocking progress on the budget over the past 100 days. Spokespeople for the Republican Senate leader did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday, but by joining with members like Paul he’s wrapped his arms around the obstructionists’ spin. According to a sign Paul’s staff whipped up for a May floor speech, they’re “Preventing A Back Room Deal To Raise The Debt Limit” and counting the days without budget conferees as a mounting victory.

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/01/2241941/republican-obstruction-of-budget-process-hits-100th-day/

That budget includes $100 billion in infrastructure spending.

<...>

The budget includes $100 billion of immediate infrastructure spending designed to boost the economy and raise $975 billion over the next decade through tax reform, which would eliminate various loopholes and tax expenditures.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/senate-passes-budget-after-all-night-debate.php

By cutting aid to vulnerable Americans, blocking a minimum-wage increase, blocking a jobs bill and infrastructure funding, trying to gut the EPA, voting to repeal Obamacare and pushing to shut down the government, Republicans are proving that they are callous assholes who don't give a damn about making people's lives better. In fact, their actions prove that they don't care if you die (by removing the protections of environmental regulations or returning to the status quo of denying you health care coverage).

The road not taken (Republicans have been holding the economy hostage for years)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023744622

The Complete Guide To The GOP’s Three-Year Campaign To Shut Down The Government
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023744676

Updated to add:

The House Republican tantrum that knows no end

By Steve Benen

The New York Times published a helpful chart the other day, which highlighted a nine-step process Congress would have to follow this week to avoid a government shutdown. As it happens, steps one through eight were completed with relative ease.

It was that ninth step that gave lawmakers trouble.

House Republicans not only gathered on a weekend to take a vote that moves the government even closer to a shutdown, they did it in the dead of night.

The Republican-controlled House voted around midnight on Saturday to keep the government open for a few more months in exchange for punting the rollout of Obamacare for a year -- the kind of shot at the health care law conservatives had wanted for weeks, even if it's sure to be rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

By all appearances, House Republicans are now actively seeking a government shutdown, specifically aiming for their goal rather than making any effort to avoid it. Indeed, the unhinged House majority appears to have gone out of its way to craft a spending bill designed to fail.

The bill approved after midnight would deny health care benefits to millions of American families for a year, add to the deficit by repealing a medical-device tax industry lobbyists urged Republicans to scrap, and in a fascinating twist, make it harder for Americans to get birth control. As the New York Times report noted, "The delay included a provision favored by social conservatives that would allow employers and health care providers to opt out of mandatory contraception coverage."

Yes, in the midst of a budget crisis, the House GOP decided it was time to go after birth control again. Wow.

Senate leaders and the White House patiently tried to explain to radicalized House Republicans that voting for this would all but guarantee a government shutdown -- so House Republicans voted for it en masse...take a look at the roll call. Jonathan Bernstein asked on Friday, "Where are the sane House Republicans?" That question was answered quite clearly last night: literally every GOP lawmaker in the chamber voted for their government-shutdown plan. There were zero defections.

This was not, in other words, an isolated tantrum thrown by an extremist faction of a once-great political party. This was rather an organized tantrum thrown by the entirety of the House Republican caucus...I use the word "tantrum" largely because Republicans told me to. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a close ally of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in July, "Shutting down the government to get your way over an unrelated piece of legislation is the political equivalent of throwing a temper tantrum. It is just not helpful."

- more -

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/29/20742297-the-house-republican-tantrum-that-knows-no-end