my e-mail from Barack Obama

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DaveW
my e-mail from Barack Obama

 

... or more precisely, from [email protected]:

 

Friend --

Right now, the hard work we've put in to get our economy back on track is at risk. And there's only one reason for it: A group of far-right Republicans in Congress is obsessed with making an ideological point.

They refuse to pass a budget unless I let them sabotage Obamacare, something they know is not going to happen. Now, we're left with only four days before a government shutdown.

This is reckless and irresponsible. Republicans are not focused on what's best for you. They're playing political games.

I called House Speaker John Boehner the other night to tell him that Americans like you have worked too long and too hard to dig our nation out of the financial crisis, and the last thing we need is for Washington to manufacture another.

I want to make sure that message gets through. Add your voice -- remind Speaker Boehner that Congress has a job to do.

Passing a budget is the most basic duty the Constitution gives to Congress.

Congress needs to hear from the people who sent them to Washington.

As we get closer to the September 30th deadline, that might mean picking up the phone, getting the facts out to friends on social media, or showing up at your local congressional office. OFA will be asking a lot of you, and I hope you'll get involved.

Start today by telling Speaker Boehner that Congress must come together to pass a budget:

http://my.barackobama.com/Pass-a-Budget

Thank you,

Barack

Issues Pages: 
DaveW

and a somewhat less partisan source, CBC:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-s-debt-showdown-7-questions-answered-1.1870696

What's holding things up?

 Republicans are pushing to use the stop-gap spending bill and the increase in the debt ceiling as leverage against Obama's three-year-old Affordable Care Act, often dubbed Obamacare. Republicans, prodded by their conservative Tea Party wing, want to use the temporary spending bill to strip funding from the health-care program. House Republicans also want to attach other provisions to the debt ceiling, including approval of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada and provisions blocking pollution regulations.

 Didn't this already happen?

 Yes. In 2011, Republicans extracted $2.1 trillion in spending cuts over a decade for a similar increase in the borrowing cap. Shutdown-averting stopgap spending bills traditionally have been steered clear of these kinds of battles for fear of a politically damaging shutdown. But with the new health-care law poised to enrol millions of people into Obamacare starting Oct. 1, there's a new urgency among opponents to pull out all the stops to try to derail it

 

DaveW

and away we go ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/politics/budget-talks-government-shutdown.html?hp&_r=0

WASHINGTON — The federal government on Saturday barreled toward its first shutdown in 17 years after House Republicans, choosing a hard line, demanded a one-year delay of President Obama’s health care law and the repeal of a tax to pay for the law before approving any funds to keep the government running.