The solution to an out-of-control situation is often to shut it down. The US Government is now completely out of control. In the words of Mike Pence, “time to pick a fight.”
If not now, then only when the historic first failure of a T-Bill auction occurs? The big-spenders who argue about where between zero and 1% they can cut don’t believe this can ever happen. It will be too bad for the world if we have to get to the point of proving them wrong.
Mike Pence says he would rather “shut it down for a few days.” I’ll go further: shut it down until the budget is balanced. I won’t miss it.
This is the time, and the fight is now. The public sector unions in Wisconsin know this, and they are already marshaling their forces for a fight to the death.
Conservatives need not dither to decide whether “civility” and compromise must be maintained: the left has already abandoned all civility and compromise. The left has determined that this is war and spared no words in calling it that. Battles are already underway. The left will never compromise. So it is just a fool’s move not to go all the way and call their bluff.
Because of what happened in 1994, the left has ingrained in their bones the belief that a government shut down favors them. But this is not 1994. And Obama is not Clinton. And a government shut down for the purpose of restoring the government of the people will be a great victory.
In 1994, it was not about restoring the government of the people; today it is. That is the simple difference.