The American public gets it.
The same American voters who replaced spineless Democrats with fire-breathing
Republicans get it. They are faulting
the Republicans – the folks they just voted into majority power in both houses of Congress – for
bringing government to its knees: with a shutdown of government, with a
threatened default on our debt payments, and with the most recent threat not to
fund the Dept. of Homeland Security. And
they are doing so even though they voted for those rascals. Perhaps the American public really likes gridlock
or brinksmanship government, perhaps they prefer do-nothing Congresses, perhaps
they prefer confrontational government, it makes good theater, it IS exciting
after all.
Putting aside the public’s involvement in government by
crisis, there is a common denominator in all these cliff-hanger shutdowns and
defaults, and that common thread is called “poison pills.” A “poison pill” is an amendment to a “clean
bill” before Congress that a) has nothing to do with the subject matter of the
underlying piece of legislation being debated and voted upon and b) forces
members to vote up a measure that they do not support (the poison pill
amendment) in order to pass a measure that they do support (the clean
bill). A “clean bill” is, of course, a
bill before Congress all of whose parts are on the same topic. And poison pills are invariably attached to
bills that have bipartisan support, like funding the military or the government
as a whole.
In the end, in a democracy the people get what they want. Or deserve.