In a game of Blind Man’s Bluff, the “blind man” is blindfolded and searches for other players in a variant game of tag. The political equivalent is now being played by Congress and with the shout “tag your it” they seek to blame the other party for the shutdown.
In this case, Democrats have self-applied the blindfolds that we could only wish covered their mouth’s as well. Stumbling around in search of some way to save themselves from further insult, all the while confirming why the American people cast them into the political wilderness.
Shutdowns in various industries, such as planned maintenance halts in manufacturing plants, emergency closures of oil refineries due to equipment failure, and scheduled outages in power plants for inspections are essential to ensuring safety, compliance, and the longevity of machinery.
Government shutdowns, on the other hand, are unnecessary and avoidable. Taking the wealth, prosperity, and well-being of a country and risking it in political brinksmanship is unwise and ill conceived.
Imagine a game of chicken, where two cars barrel at one another at deadly speeds. Except in one of those cars the driver is blind. He can’t see how fast, or how close he is to death. Now, imagine that the sightless driver doesn’t care.
This describes how Democrats have created a political game of chicken which will soon become a wreck from which they might not survive. Shutting down the government is a fiery but preventable crisis.
When either party threatens a government shutdown it becomes a tool to beat each other’s brains out. Instead of improving America’s quality of life and fiscal standing, they fail us in favor of fueling their power plays.
The Democrat’s behavior this time around on the debt ceiling isn’t above you, but beneath contempt. The only beneficiaries of this federal farce are the entitled elected class whose pockets and egos are filled by their own machinations.
Democrats claim their stance is based on an unhealthy rise in premium costs associated with the Affordable Care Act. A bill passed by Democrats who they now claim it isn’t affordable. A bill Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Republicans respond that negotiations stalled because Democrats are demanding free healthcare for illegal aliens.
Both claims are true, insurance premiums are headed for a catastrophic rise, and it is certain federal benefits under the Dem’s bill will continue to flow to illegal immigrants. That they are both true shows how badly broken our government has become.
The Democrats debt increase plan, to save “Affordable Care,” comes with an additional $3 trillion in debt. I don’t think “affordable” means what they think it means. Tort, insurance, and regulatory reform are the cure for what ails healthcare, not more debt.
The Republican’s plan is to raise the debt by a mere $2 trillion. It is not possible that denying non-citizens federal benefits costs more than providing it to them.
This is madness and that’s the point.
In defending the shutdown, Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY said on the floor of the senate, “Democrats want to avert this crisis. But Republicans tried to bully us and it’s clear they can’t. They don’t have the vote.”
How times have changed. Seven months ago, Schumer had this to say on the same subject, “I have said many times, there are no winners in a government shutdown.”
Schumer isn’t the blind driver at the wheel of his party’s circus car careening toward a cliff, its AOC, and her fellow progressive puritans.
Schumer feels the breath of Alexandria Ocassio Cortez on his neck and believes by abandoning his previously held view on a shutdown he will secure yet another term boring and belaboring hard-working Americans.
AOC’s urgings notwithstanding, her desire for his job remains. His collapse to the pressure of progressive members of his party is another shovel full of earth heaped on his political grave. His acquiescence to the far left in shutting government down is a tantrum disguised as tactics.
Is it worse to have government shut down than to recklessly barrel down the highway of fiscal insolvency with drunken sightless clowns at the wheel? Nope.
The effects of a shutdown are arguable, who and how it hurts is debatable.
Most Americans won’t even notice. A government so big, so breathtaking in its enormity, is yet so inconsequential to most citizens’ everyday life, that is except for its costs.
Democrats believe they can use this stalemate to injure Republicans and damage their chances in the next election. Showing no concern for improving how the government works or the lives of their constituents.
We are all losers if our government’s appetite isn’t tamed and the deficit trimmed substantially. If we choose the path of continuing fiscal follies we will visit and revisit this same debate ad nauseum, with no end in sight.
That is until we reach the bottom of the pit of insolvency, from whence we may never climb out.
Led by the sightless who run toward disaster, not away from it, we all suffer the consequences. Democrats, deservedly so, might feel the pain of their pathetic pandering first, but make no mistake we’ll all get it in the end.
This is no game and it’s time for the sighted, the far seeing and future oriented, to take the wheel.
Stephen Piccirillo © 2025
