Oops. They’ve done it again.
No, this isn’t the start of an uppity Britney Spears song.
This is the Republican-led Congress of the United States possibly shutting down a branch of the government — again.
The Department of Homeland Security will shut down Friday unless Congress decides to act, because funding for the department will expire before the rest of the government as part of the $1.1 trillion spending bill Congress approved in ?December 2014.
But why shut down the government again after the political backlash from the last time around?
This time, instead of blocking millions of Americans from having affordable health insurance, the GOP-led Congress wants to challenge President Obama’s executive action on immigration.
House Speaker John Boehner suggested he would indeed let the department’s funding lapse if the Senate doesn’t pass a spending bill that would gut legal protections for five million ?undocumented immigrants.
Ah, classic.
And not only would the bill block the president’s most recent executive action on immigration reform, but it would also derail his 2012 executive action, which has offered relief to immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.
The consequences of a government shutdown don’t just affect these DREAMers either, as many of the department’s employees will see their pay furloughed and hardworking Americans will be asked to work without a paycheck.
And ironically, as history shows us, the political consequences for the Republican Party will be pretty bad as well.
Let’s turn the page back to 2013.
In the aftermath of the government shutdown over the Affordable Care Act, approval ratings of the Republican Party took a deep plunge.
Last summer, the Democratic National Committee even sent a satire bill to Ted Cruz for shutting down the government, and many Democratic organizations used the 2013 government shutdown as an opportunity to fundraise.
The DNC’s letter stated, “As you and your Tea Party allies from the House gather to plot your next legislative misadventure, we want to make sure you had settled the tab with the American people for your government shutdown.”
This is a pretty bad time for the Department of Homeland Security to shut down, as the president just asked Congress to declare war on the so-called Islamic State and there are very serious threats to American safety.
So here’s to the GOP-led Congress.
You once tried to block millions of Americans from obtaining reliable health insurance, and now you are trying to derail steps to help rebuild a broken immigration system.
Oh and, in the process, you are furloughing hardworking Americans. Seriously, we are a nation built by laws and immigrants.
Maybe it’s time the Republican Party started acting like it.
kajsingh@indiana.edu
