IMPASSE

In a recent poll, hemorrhoids scored higher than Congress.  And in the latest AP poll, the President is down to about 37%, too.

Our country has reason for concern about big things like terrorism and the debt.  And we want the best healthcare possible.  Regarding healthcare, about half the country seems to lean toward Obamacare while the other half leans away.

The wad of folks leaning left...think Obamacare is all about taking care of people.  So if you're against the Affordable Care Act, they think you're anti-compassion.  The wad of people leaning to the right think Obamacare is about impossible math...they think the other side must be pie-in-the-sky/numbers-challenged.  LINK

Impasse.

May I say to the caring side that you're going to "care" us to the poorhouse, in which case no one will get help.  And may I say to the logical side that your numbers may be completely true, but without the other half of the country, you're nowhere.

People are more frustrated than ever with leadership because terrorists and the default are real...and we're all in the healthcare kettle.  It doesn't take a political science degree to understand big concepts like these:

1.  Everyone knows we spend too much money and cannot continue to just print money.  When Ben Bernake came to the microphone back in September, "everyone" expected him to say we were finally propped up enough to stop printing dollars.  He didn't.  Bernake said we couldn't AFFORD to quit propping our economy up.  That can't be good, but no one will cut or quit spending.

2.  Everyone knows the job market stinks and part-time work is on the rise.  The only encouraging numbers are artificial; joblessness is at a very modest increase, but that's only because people have given up looking for work.  If those who have given up looking were factored back in, the joblessness would be over 15%.  And many of the jobs that have been created are not career jobs...but fast food part-time jobs.  Obamacare is causing the jobs numbers and the part-time jobs increase.  Notice the chart above (loss of 800,000 jobs) is not from a "right wing" organization, but from the government CBO.

3.  Everyone thinks closing nature was a bit much.  Besides, how DOES one shut the ocean off?  Or the Grand Canyon?  The cones around the pull-overs at Rushmore were ridiculous...the couple that couldn't go home @Lake Mead was sad...the poor Asian travelers who thought they were under arrest in Yellowstone was shameful...and government trying to close Mt. Vernon's parking lot (when it wasn't theirs to close) was telling.

For government to pay all that staff to play KEEP OUT...seemed to most reasonable people counterproductive.

When we got to the closing of the open-air WW2 monuments, things began to get really get asinine.  Then the mother of all punitive measures, cutting off military death benefits, just broke the camel's back.  Why?

Before the shutdown, Congress UNANIMOUSLY voted for the "Pay our Troops Act" and the President had signed it. So Congress thought everything was hunky dory.  Then lawyers over at DOJ reinterpreted and funding was stopped.  Still, the President sat on that freeze for 7-10 days when only a stroke of his well-used executive order pen could have changed the situation in a flash.  He did nothing until just today.

When we put two and two together, it equals an inexperienced community organizer out of his league and drunk on power.  All the statements about refusing to negotiate seemed wildly out-of-place in the context of our system of checks and balances.  It seemed as if Mr. "You Bring a Knife and I'll Bring a Gun" had outgrown his constitutional britches.

America has watched as healthcare promise after healthcare promise bit the dust.  No keeping your doc (mine pulled out of the system).  No keeping your healthcare plan
(insurance companies have dropped out).  No premium costs lowered by $2,500.  The only promise that "stuck" was the one about covering pre-existing conditions.  Still with that claim, the number of children said to have pre-existing conditions was 17 million.  In reality, the number was somewhere between 160,000 and 1.1 million.  We could have given each of those uninsured a chunk of change for what this new system is costing.

"AFFORDABLE" Care Act, my hind leg.

And the latest news?  We're told the President is still not negotiating, but IS talking.  Go figure that nomenclature.