congressional republicans
Tailoring workshop. Photo via Shutterstock/Miguel Garcia Saavedra
I got fitted for a custom-tailored suit this week.
Not because I suddenly found a pot of money. I didn’t, and I didn’t need to. The cost for this Hong Kong tailor is comparable to what I have been paying for off-the-rack suits.
My problem is middle age. My shifting body type makes off-the-rack suits too wide in the shoulders and too long. It’s proof that life keeps on changing, and that the way forward must include getting unstuck from old ideas.
Government shutdown illustration, Alice Day / Shutterstock.com
One of the most depressing things I heard on the first day of the government shutdown was that it was a record fundraising day for both parties. Washington, D.C., is no longer about governing; it is just about winning and losing. But the people who will lose the most during a government shutdown — and then an impending United States government default on paying its debts — are those who live day to day on their wages, those at the lower end of the nation’s economy, and the poorest and most vulnerable who are always hurt the most in a crisis like this. And what happens to those people is the focus of the faith community; that is our job in politics — to talk about what happens to them. Faith leaders have been meeting to discuss what we must do in response to this political crisis brought on by absolute political dysfunction
The government shutdown seems to have gotten the attention of the nation. And if this ends in a default on our debt, the potentially catastrophic crashing of the economy will certainly wake us up. The only positive I see in this crisis is that the right issues — the moral issues — might finally get our attention.
Post fiscal-cliff, both President Obama and the Congress are expected to take on comprehensive immigraiton reform. Politico discusses the influential Republicans who will insert themselves into the debate.
Politico reports:
They lack the stature of the Big Three Republicans in the immigration reform debate: Marco Rubio, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
But just below that senatorial trio, there’s another group of lesser-known GOP lawmakers expected to play an outsize role — both within the party and negotiating with Democrats — as Congress delves into an issue that could consume much of its bandwidth next year.