Share The Pox

 The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!
H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

The Madison Conservative strives to be as non-partisan as possible. We use the Constitution as our guide for calling constitutional balls and strikes. By using that metric, most issues become easy to discern.

In rare instances, everybody is wrong, and the Constitution stands alone.

And so it is with the government shutdown.

It seems easy to blame the Democrats and their insipid intransigence. They make grotesque accusations to defend their indefensible arguments. Their stance is stupid, plain and simple.

As my mom would say, a pox on their house.

That is the popular take, and while accurate as far as it goes, it is incomplete.

The key question is how we got here.

The Republlllicans.

Both parties play the continuing resolution (CR) game. It allows them to cram their pet projects into one giant omnibus funding bill that nobody ever reads.

The Republicans promised us if they gained power, they would be different. They promised a return to normal order, wherein they would debate funding bills in the appropriate committee and then have a floor vote. What adds to the frustration is that the budget is due on a date certain. It did not just appear. With the due date of September 30th fast approaching, what did the Republicans do. They took August off for vacation.

This in no way absolves the Democrats, but when tossing around pox, make sure it lands on ALL their houses.