Dear Congress (and Trump): YOU'RE FIRED! (Again)

Though this time it was brief and over within a matter of hours, there was nonetheless yet another government shutdown last night.  Just three weeks after the first one.  All because Congress couldn't get their act together and pass even a very brief stopgap funding bill in time, though they did ultimately come to a longer-term two-year budget deal once the perennial gadfly Rand Paul finally got out of the way.

Like the shutdown in 2013, as well as the one three weeks ago, the blame lies primarily with Republicans.  This time around, like last time, it was initially their refusal to negotiate with Democrats about several pressing issues, most notably DACA, in the past several weeks that led to the current impasse, though they did finally come to a deal that Rand Paul held up for hours.  Specifically, he vehemently disagreed with the increase in government spending, a point that was really not too far off the mark.   Granted with a Republican president this time, the roles of offense and defense have been reversed, but Trump has clearly sent mixed signals and has essentially been engaging in chaos manufacture all this time, though he did favor this deal and sign it into law.  Regardless, this Congress and the Trump regime both put the "funk" back in "dysfunctional"!

The new two-year deal, however, is also quite problematic in that it massively increases government spending, especially on "defense" (read: our already over-bloated and over-extended military), on the heels of that massive tax cut mostly for the rich and corpoations, at a time when the national debt already exceeds $20 TRILLION, which is just over 100% of GDP.  The deficit alone will thus most likely exceed a trillion next year, if not sooner.  There are some good things in the deal (such as disaster relief and healthcare), to be sure, but now is absolutely NOT the time to spend like a bunch of sailors and make the national debt skyrocket even further into the stratosphere.  With an unemployment rate around 4%, which is basically "full employment" by today's standards, now is the time to start running budget surpluses, NOT yawning deficits.   It's called "countercyclical finance", folks. John Maynard Keynes must be spinning in his grave right now!

That said, the TSAP hereby gives virtually all 535 members of this most dysfunctional Congress in history, especially (but not limited to) Republicans, a vote of "no confidence", and we will take their government shutdown to imply the resignation of such members.   We also do the same for Trump as well, obviously.  We thus encourage every reader of this blog to sign the following petitions:

Dear Congress:  We Accept Your Resignation
No Pay for Congress During Shutdown
No Budget, No Pay
Minimum Wage for Congress
Impeach Donald Trump Now

Let them know that We the People have had ENOUGH of the gridlock, grandstanding, backstabbing, corruption, venality, follies, lies, recklessness, childishness, and otherwise outrageous behavior of Congress, along with the mendacity, recklessness, instability, incompetence, hate, chaos manufacture, grift, graft, and scandals of the orange menace in the White House. If we weren't clear, we'll say it again:

YOU'RE FIRED!!!

So what's the opposite of "progress" again?  You guessed it.