Believing they’re “winning” the government shutdown, Democrats are playing a dangerous game of chicken, aiming to keep on exploiting the public’s misdirected ire — without it being turned on them.
Yet what’s already a record-long federal closure could blow up in their faces if their scheming means millions of Americans can’t see grandma at Thanksgiving.
Even though it’s the Dems refusing to let the government reopen, Senate and House Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries & Co. bet that voters would finger Republicans for gumming up the works.
The gamble seemingly paid off Tuesday, as Democrats outperformed expectations in Virginia and New Jersey; at least some polls also show the public blaming the GOP more.
Most Americans don’t look past who’s in charge of the House, Senate and White House to grasp how the filibuster lets the minority party block the bill to fund federal operations, and of course much of the media is happy to frame Republicans as villains who don’t care if SNAP recipients can’t eat or furloughed federal workers can’t pay their bills.
Apparently, Dems are willing to let the suffering continue as long as they can dodge responsibility; Republicans, meanwhile, feel they can’t OK the $1.5 trillion ransom that Democrats demand.
So Axios and others report that the leftmost congressfolk who demanded the shutdown in the first place to appease the party’s base are now encouraging their colleagues to keep voting down Republican efforts to open the government back up.
But if the mess ruins Thanksgiving — and then starts to threaten Christmas — the victims will start taking a closer look at what’s really going on.
Millions of families will see holidays ruined by airport hell.
New Jersey-bound travelers were pummeled with hours-long delays on Thursday, as Newark Liberty International Airport coped with crippling staffing shortages; the next day more than 800 flights across America got cancelled as the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the 40 busiest airports to start slashing flights to ease the pressure on the airports’ beleaguered skeleton crews.
It’s just a taste of what’s to come: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned Friday that up to 20% of flights could be nixed in the coming weeks if the government remains closed.
Many Americans have far bigger worries, and not just those who rely on SNAP to feed the family: How long could you make ends meet if your paycheck stopped unexpectedly?
Over five weeks into the shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal employees are stuck in that dilemma, even those in vital jobs like air-traffic control who are still required to work.
The longer this goes on, the more those last will register their fury in the obvious way — calling in sick.
Yet members of Congress still collect their pay, an injustice that some of them sometimes talk of correcting via legislation to put them in the same boat as other government workers.
Once the country gets past this mess, that reform should become a top priority to rein in future bouts of idiocy.
On that note, Majority Leader John Thune is keeping the Senate working this weekend in hopes some deal can be worked out.
Yet while some senators in both parties are talking turkey, lefties like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) are pushing their colleagues to keep digging in their heels until the Republicans surrender.
High off what seems a brilliant success, Democrats risk a nasty miscalculation of how much obstructionism they can get away with before voters wise up.
Steal something as big as their Christmas, and Americans are smart enough to identify the true grinches.
This Article was copied from nypost .com, visit to read more
NOTE: THIS SITE DOES NOT BELONG TO FACEBOOK
