Nothing Short of Pure Evil Genius

Wow. The Democrats political posturing during the last 12 hours of the budget/government shutdown debate is nothing short of pure evil genius.

After dragging their feet for over a year, most of that time with the votes required to pass whatever budget they wanted, the Democrats are all of a sudden extremely worried about passing the 2011 budget – and by 2011, I mean the 5 months that remain in governments fiscal 2011. It reminds me of when I dilly-dally in the mornings with three or four smashes of the snooze button, or perhaps a little too much Wow Wow Wubbzy with the kids, and end up arriving at the train station just in time to watch my train steam off into the distance without me. I always end up blaming that pesky school bus for actually stopping to pick up the children or that one light that I just missed because the elderly driver ahead of me has the gall to drive her 1982 Cadillac the speed limit and actually come to a complete stop at stop signs. The bus and the elderly driver are annoying, but they are not the primary reasons I missed my train – I should have left the house 5 minutes earlier…

The Republicans and their proposed budget cuts are the Democrats’ school bus and elderly driver – a convenient excuse to mask their procrastination and ineptitude.

The evil genius comes from injecting the “women’s health” issues (i.e. abortion) into the budget/spending debate. If a government shutdown occurs and the Democrats can convincingly claim that the Republicans put 800,000 government workers and their families out of work because they want to cut funding for “women’s health” (whether true or not), the Democrats will come out of this shutdown smelling of roses and in a great position leading into the 2012 elections. Genius – pure, evil genius.

As for the Republicans, we have no idea how accurate Senate Majority Leader Reid’s statements are regarding the “women’s health” issues, but if they are even marginally true, and do in fact cause a government shutdown, the Republicans will have squandered a huge opportunity to kick start the spending cuts and will all but stop the positive momentum generated by their surprisingly well received 2012 budget proposal.

I think the Democrats have successfully called the Republicans bluff, and if the Republicans are smart, they will fold the current hand, take their profits so far ($40B in spending cuts that have been agreed), and save their chips for the next big hand (the 2012 budget).