*Government Shutdown

Now in the 9^th day of the Republican government shutdown and just over a week away from running out of extraordinary measures to keep paying America’s bills, House Republicans still don’t have a real plan on how to end their manufactured crises.  As POLITICO reports:

Another day, another consequence of the GOP shutdown.  The Wall Street Journal reports the shutdown is making it harder to detect and track a salmonella outbreak that’s putting the health of Americans at risk:

“The previous speaker said that the shutdown should be unacceptable. I agree with that. And we could all, within the next half an hour, vote to make the unacceptable not the policy that we are pursuing.

As we begin day nine of the Republican government shutdown, the effects are being seen across the country, hurting our economy and squeezing middle-class families and businesses.  From yesterday’s New York Times:

Republicans’ economic games are having a real-world impact on Americans’ economic confidence, according to a new poll by Gallup.  According to a report in The Hill:

“Now I rise in opposition to this bill that’s been put on the Floor, which is another way to distract from the business at hand: opening up our government. And eight days from now, our government will be in a position for the first time in history where we won’t be able to pay our bills.

At a time when the backlog of veterans’ disability claims remains unacceptable, the GOP shutdown is about to make it worse. According to an article by the Hill:

“Regional offices run by the Department of Veterans Affairs closed Tuesday as furloughs began for 7,000 employees of the agency’s Benefits Administration (VBA).”

Whatever happened to desperately wanting to negotiate and this not being a game? This just in from National Review: