Obamacare’s four-year government shutdown

The federal government’s shutdown at midnight on October 1, 2013 was a long time in the making. The seeds were planted back in 2009 with the divisive passage of the Affordable Care Act. Since then, the entire United States government has been grinding to a slow, painful halt over this law. To understand the current shutdown, we must recall that Obamacare has been mired in a political grudge match on both sides of the aisle from its very conception.

Following huge electoral victories for Democrats in 2008, the president decided — against the pleadings of his closest advisers — to make healthcare his first priority. Almost immediately, the president was met with massive opposition, as this increasingly unpopular law was not supported by Republicans and the growing Tea Party. Counting his 60-vote bloc in the Senate, and a huge margin in the House, the president and Senate Democrats pushed on, deeming it unnecessary to have any bipartisan support.

Never before was such a monumental piece of legislation passed on a straight-party line vote, with zero support from the opposing party. In August 2009, former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean attempted to justify the “pass it at any cost” approach: “All the really great programs in American history, Social Security, [were] done without Republicans. Medicare was done without Republican support until the last vote where they realized they had to get on board.” He was wrong. The Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1965, The Social Security Amendments of 1965, which created Medicaid and Medicare, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Voting Rights Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, were all passed with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress.

Via: Daily Caller

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