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Another shutdown would doom Republicans; Oren M. Spiegler; Beaver County Times; November 18, 2014.
Mr. Spiegler is such a prolific letter writer the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review gave him a little tribute back in 2003. Google “Oren M. Spiegler” and you’ll get more hits than you know what to do with. Unfortunately, prolific is not a synonym for competent. Mr. Spiegler claims to be a Republican. In my critique of “Breathing more freely,” I cited reasons why I was “beginning to believe Mr. Spiegler is simply another Republican impersonator,” but he sealed the deal with “Greatest foreign policy debacle.” Subsequent letters provided more confirmation. The group of local Republican impersonators also includes Messrs. William A. Alexander, Arthur Brown, Edward J. Hum, Bill Ralston, and George Reese, all claiming to be disgruntled Republicans.
You can find links to previous critiques of Spiegler letters I critiqued here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“It is often said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. This axiom may again come into play as some within the Republican Congressional delegation are making rumblings about another GOP government shutdown if President Obama goes forward with his plan to ease deportation of those who are in our country illegally.”
[RWC] “Another GOP government shutdown?” Mr. Spiegler blames the GOP for the government “shutdown” for two weeks in 2013, but ignores the roles of President Obama and the Democrat-majority Senate. If you want to assign guilt, all three are responsible. Remember, the vast majority of government is immune from shutdown. That’s why most of the sob stories we heard about were things like closed national parks.
“According to Standard and Poor’s, no liberal mouthpiece, the 2013 government shutdown brought to us courtesy of the ‘fiscally responsible’ GOP, cost a whopping $24 billion and, as thoughtful Americans know, it accomplished nothing but the tarnishing of the Republican brand. Imagine the outrage that would be voiced by the Republicans in Congress if those on the opposite side of the aisle proposed $24 billion in new social spending with no way to pay for it.”
[RWC] The “cost a whopping $24 billion” comment is bogus. Standard & Poors estimated the shutdown cost the economy $24 billion. A Forbes story countered, “There Will Be No $24B Economic Loss From The Government Shutdown.”
If the so-called shutdown about one year ago “tarnish[ed] … the Republican brand,” is Mr. Spiegler implying Republicans would have pounded Democrats even worse in the 2014 election?
“While I do not sign on to the president throwing down the gauntlet on immigration and risking the eruption of a battle royale with the Republicans, there has been ample opportunity for the GOP-dominated House to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which reasonable and fair-minded people know is badly-needed.”
[RWC] Though he started off claiming he “do[es] not sign on to the president throwing down the gauntlet on immigration … ,” Mr. Spiegler concludes by implying Mr. Obama would be justified to act because “the GOP-dominated House” didn’t pass a law Mr. Obama wants. This is not how our Constitution describes how the government should operate. Can you imagine what Mr. Spiegler would have written had then-President George W. Bush gone ahead with Socialist Security reform via executive order?
Note Mr. Spiegler doesn’t tell us what he means by “comprehensive immigration reform.” Has anyone seen a side-by-side comparison of our current comprehensive immigration laws and the proposed “comprehensive immigration reform?” I’d also like to know what’s broken with our current comprehensive immigration laws that enforcement wouldn’t fix. Because I raise these questions, I must not be “reasonable and fair-minded.”
“If worse comes to worst and the president follows through on his threat to issue an executive order to ease deportations, the last thing sensible Republican leadership should do is to engineer a government shutdown. If they defy logic and bring it about, it will be clear that they are welcoming a Democratic resurgence in 2016.”
[RWC] In case you haven’t figured it out, Mr. Spiegler will blame any faux government shutdown on Republicans. By “engineer a government shutdown,” Mr. Spiegler refers to any spending bill that Mr. Obama doesn’t like and vetoes. In this specific case, if in the next government spending bill Congress does not provide funding to support “an executive order to ease deportations,” Mr. Obama will likely veto the bill. This would result in another faux shutdown and Mr. Spiegler would blame Republicans, not Mr. Obama or congressional Democrats who could make the bill veto proof. There’s a reason the Constitution gives the power of the purse to Congress, not the President. Congress withholding funds from programs is nothing new and completely legal. Using Mr. Spiegler’s logic, Congress becomes powerless because it must fund whatever Mr. Obama wants to avoid the trauma of a government “shutdown.” If voters wanted more of Mr. Obama’s policies, they would have elected more Democrats, not more Republicans.
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