Photo courtesy: Flickr.com Photo: Flickr user Kaz Vorpal via Creative Commons
I just saw a post in the Washington Post with a playlist of songs related to the shutdown that you might have on your iPod. “Wake me up when September ends?” Well, September has ended. And a shutdown that was expected to last a couple of days is now entering its second week.
There are reports surfacing that both sides may be heading back to the table to end the government shutdown. It’s about time. The current crisis is beginning to feel like the retooling of a bad network television pilot, at risk for cancellation, where every aspect of the production needs some serious tweaking, and a few of the key characters need outright replacing.
Polls show a majority of Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown, a majority of Americans still don’t like Obamacare, which is officially up and running now, and a majority of Americans don’t want to raise the debt ceiling without cuts somewhere else.
Social Security checks have still been going out but if you’ve had questions about Social Security or Medicare, you haven’t been able to get a live person on the line to answer it or access a government run website. Monuments and National Parks have been shut down while NASA was kept afloat. The list goes on.

Paul Ryan, the slash and burn Congressman from Wisconsin and Chairman of the Budget Committee, who has rightly said entitlement programs will have to be reformed, has essentially gone into hiding. Even a fiscal hawk like Ryan could see the Election Day implications for House Republicans if they tried to attach a repeal of Obamacare to funding the government.  As Mr. ‘I’m Moderate Again’ John McCain said to the Tea Party hostage takers within his own party, and I’m paraphrasing, “Like it or not, Obamacare is now the law.”

The part I still don’t get is why anyoe thought is was a good idea for the Republicans to reach out and grab that falling anvil in the first place. After all, Americans, even those without insurance, were already conflicted about Obamacare, as Obama’s falling popularity numbers indicated. And they were warming up to fiscal reform.

You could be forgiven if you have dialed out of this drama. But don’t change the channel just yet. I don’t think this series will get cancelled after all.  Its’ name may be changing, though from “The Grand Bargain” to “Gone Gov’t.”