YOU’RE WELCOME: One Month After the Shutdown Ended, Lee and Cruz Are Sitting Pretty
It’s Nov. 16, 2013, and the partial government shutdown ended one month ago today.
In those four weeks, and the two prior, everything conservatives said would happen has happened. What’s more, the Democrats’ united stand against them has turned into a retreat — and is primed to become a rout — as they amend Obamacare’s disastrous rollout, President Barack Obama apologizes for his failures, and electorally vulnerable Democrats break ranks and flee.
Hell, even the polls that D.C.’s Republican pundits shrieked, wept and clawed over show the Grand Old Party has bounced back while the Democrats have fallen behind. Because, in the end, real people simply weren’t affected by the shutdown, so they won’t vote on it — a distinction Obamacare does not share.
It’s clear now that the whole shutdown thing could have been avoided if Mr. Obama had been willing to bend on his signature health-care law — something reality has since forced him to do, and something he will likely have to continue to do — instead of accusing the Republicans of being “terrorists” who are holding the country captive.
And rather than crashing, as the president predicted, the private sector survived just fine without government. Obama’s specific prediction — “I mean whatever effect Obamacare might have on the economy is far less than even a few days of government shutdown” — turned out to be precisely wrong. (VIDEO: It’s been two weeks and still no apocalypse, you guys)
