Our Groundhog Day Government

Iowa's US House delegation is part of the problem, not the solution.

Remember the 1993 movie comedy classic, “Groundhog Day?” Bill Murray plays a TV weatherman sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the famous “Groundhog Day” ceremony - for the fourth year in a row. He’s sick of the assignment. Once there, he soon discovers that he’s also now trapped in an eternal time loop where he must re-live the same day over and over again.

At first, he enjoys it. Then he discovers it’s a curse.

It was a fun movie to watch. It’s not much fun to live.

Yet, today, millions of Americans are doing just that as Republicans in Congress - including Iowa’s all Republican congressional delegation manufacture inaction and stalemate on urgent, major problems they should be working to solve.

Instead, thanks in large measure to their unwillingness to act and worse, we repeat those problems and the behaviors that go with them, over and over.

Here are three examples:

1. Mass Shootings: Even elementary school kids, teachers, and school staff now routinely train for how to respond to school shootings. When they happen, the rest of us all know what to do, too. We express our grief and sadness. We place piles of flowers in make shift memorials outside the school. Federal and state lawmakers show up, right on cue, and offer “thoughts and prayers.” Public officials - at least the boot licking lackeys owned by the National Rifle Association (NRA) - also immediately remind us that “now is not the time” to talk about reforming gun safety laws.

   What never changes are our gun safety laws. which desperately need reform and repair. They could be significantly strengthened to better protect kids - and all of us really - from mass shootings. Yet, the only response Republicans are willing to allow is the “Groundhog Day” response.

   Repeat the routines. Offer thoughts. Offer prayers. Do nothing.

   The only things that ever seem to change are the cities and the schools where these shootings happen, and the number and names of the dead. Even the weapons sickeningly remain the same, shooting after shooting - AR-15s, a weapon of war that should never be sold to civilians, but is in fact, routinely widely sold and is accessible to literally anybody.

   Surely that fact alone offers an opportunity to act to protect kids and others from mass shooters. But nothing out of the “Groundhog Day” routine ever happens.

   Again. Repeat the routines. Offer thoughts. Offer prayers. Do nothing.

   All Republicans in Congress - and in statehouses across the country - do is repeat their offer of “thoughts and prayers” for the fresh new tragedy and wait for the next one. It is never a long wait.

2. 2020 Election Denial: How many more times do we have to listen to the cry babies who lost the 2020 presidential election whine about losing that election? How many more times will they repeat the Big Lie? The 2024 field is taking shape, is largely formed, and still Donald Trump and his confederates still deny they lost, even though they also lost the judgment and verdict of every trial or investigation that looked into their lies.

   Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee lost the whole darn American Civil War and didn’t turn into half the poor, sore losers Trump and his gangs have become.

3. Debt Limit Hostage Taking: Late word is that President Biden and Speaker McCarthy may have reached an “agreement in principle” on raising the debt limit. What reaching an “agreement in principle” means with this Speaker, the weakest in American history, isn’t really known. McCarthy probably has to get the approval of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz before ordering the House’s famous bean soup for lunch, so it’s anyone’s guess what McCarthy’s negotiated agreement “in principle” on this or anything else means. This may be close to over, or it may just be entering a new even more difficult phase. We’ll see.

   Still, whether this is ending, or just cranking up, this latest round of threats and hostage taking should sound familiar. It’s now the Republican “go to” maneuver when Democrats are in the White House. They did it in 2011 and 2013 when President Obama was in the White House, and here they go again, with President Biden.

   It’s a phony fight, really. Raising the debt limit doesn’t do a thing to reduce spending. Congress has already made the spending decisions. The money has already been spent. Raising the debt limit just just authorizes the Treasury to write the checks to pay for what’s been purchased and delivered once the invoices arrive.

   To not pay those invoices - our debt - would make us a deadbeat nation.

   What Republicans are essentially threatening is that the government should act like Donald Trump does in his businesses with so many of his vendors - place the orders, accept the goods and services, and then stiff the vendors and not pay.

   Unlike Trump, however, when the federal government does not pay its bills when they come due there is a very real possibility of crashing the US and world economies, forcing a rise in interest rates we all pay, etc. and thereby increasing the cost of everything, including government. In other words, financial catastrophe. It should be avoided at all costs.

   Which is why every Democrat in the US House signed a discharge petition recently that would have forced a debt limit increase bill to the House floor for a vote, without preconditions. In other words, no hostage taking.

   That is exactly how it was handled three times during Donald Trump’s presidency. It was raised three times, with bi-partisan support, without pre-conditions.

   Trump supported it.

   House and Senate Republicans supported it.

   Democrats in the House and Senate made no attempt to block it.

   It was the right thing to do, as it is today. Yet, once again, Republicans are holding a debt limit increase hostage. We’ve all seen this movie before. Multiple times.

Only five Republicans in the House needed to sign the discharge petition to send it to the House floor for a vote, by-passing the hostage takers. The signatures of only five Republicans could have stopped the hostage taking, ended the threat to the economy, eliminated the possibility of an electric jolt to interest rates.

Iowa could have provided four of those signatures - from Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (1st IA); Ashley Hinson (2nd IA); Zach Nunn (3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (4th IA).

None of the four signed it.

Iowa provided no signatures. Iowa’s all Republican delegation chose to stand instead with the hostage takers, the “we don’t pay our bills” crowd, the economy wreckers, and the interest rate raisers.

There’s not a lot in any of that to benefit Iowa.

Iowa’s four House Republicans, in each case, chose ideology and partisanship over policy that works for the good of Iowans, Iowa and the nation.

They have also all facilitated the other “Groundhog Day” experiences I discussed above, which Republicans have now made part of America’s political landscape, as well.

None of the four have told the 2020 election deniers to knock it off, honor the results of a democratic election, stop whining and move on to the substantial work that needs to get done.

None of the four have introduced legislation to improve the safety of kids in school or that might reduce the odds of kids getting their heads blown off by an AR-15 as they sit in arithmetic class because someone who had no business near a gun was able to get an AR-15 or similar weapon of war.

In fact, if you look at the legislation Mr. Feenstra has introduced, in particular, the list resembles a big, sloppy, wet kiss for the NRA more than anything else. He has introduced no legislation to help protect school kids - or the rest of us - from becoming victims of mass shootings. Lots of NRA wish list items, though.

Republicans - Iowa’s congressional Republicans included - seem quite comfortable with the “Groundhog Day” like rituals they have imposed on America and that have now grown common place in the America their politics and policies have created.

Are you?

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Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights

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Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines

Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake

Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley

Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County

Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji

Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames

Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines

Nik Heftman: The Seven Times, Los Angeles and Iowa

Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla

Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines

Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo

Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames

Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey

Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa

Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar

Wini Moranville, Wini’s Food Stories, Des Moines

Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines

Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines

John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines

Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines

Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politic Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.

Macey Spensley: The Midwest Creative, Iowa

Larry Stone: Listening to the Land, Elkader

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona

Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County

Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport

Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines

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