One of the 47% that pays no tax?
“The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, could shut down. The program provides supplemental food, health care referrals and nutrition education for pregnant women, mothers and their children…senior nutrition grants, which provides meals for 2.5 million elderly Americans, would not be funded in the event of a shutdown.”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/29/20745618-a-government-shutdown-what-could-it-look-like?lite
Sadly, this is only the first in a series of self-made crises that are about to occur.
Congressional Action
There is still the Debt Limit “debate” and the expiration of whatever short term continuing resolution Congress comes up with. Both of these are basic operational government issues. Neither have anything at all to do with policy or ideology. To be clear, both of these issues are Congress’s acceptance of what it has already authorized. No new spending bills are up for any sort of discussion.
So why are we here? Well, there is the Hastert Rule (the Speaker of the House will not put any bill on the floor without the certainty of a majority of votes from his own party), Senate filibusters that require no actual filibuster and, of course, the inability of Tea Party officials to accept anything from Barack Obama even if they agree with it. We should also remember that these very same Tea Party members also do not accept Social Security, Medicare, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Roe v. Wade, climate change or evolution. Should we be surprised that they think shutting the government down and starving babies and senior citizens is a good idea?