The Daily Beast's Jamelle Bouie upbraids members of the Republican Party for failing to acknowledge kids with cancer, food stamp recipients and others who have been gravely affected by the partial shutdown of the federal government.
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For Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the government shutdown is just a "temporary inconvenience." The libertarian lawmaker is right that the shutdown is temporary, but I'd be hard-pressed to label it an "inconvenience."
Among the people affected by House Republicans' refusal to fund the government are kids with cancer, who have been refused admittance for clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health; kids in Head Start; women who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); shipyard workers; domestic violence counselors; disease and infection trackers at the Centers for Disease Control; college students on federal work study programs; and hundreds of thousands of federal workers, as well as the communities who serve them.
Republicans have offered measures that fund specific areas — in particular, veterans benefits and national parks — but have had little to say about these other functions of the federal government. That's no surprise. The substantive outcome of the shutdown fits broadly with House Republicans' long-standing policy priorities: cuts to programs for low-income Americans and the preservation of retirement benefits for today's senior citizens.
Read Jamelle Bouie's entire piece at the Daily Beast.
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