Now that the government shutdown is over, the Republicans and their allies in the media are in full blown damage control mode. The Republicans would like for everyone to forget the harm that was done to workers across the country and to job creation and the real damage to economic growth that was done when we can least afford it due directly to Republican brinksmanship over the Affordable Care Act and raising the debt ceiling.
If anyone needed an example of just how cynical these hostage takers are and just how dismissive they are towards ordinary working people, you need look no further than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Face the Nation this Sunday.
Heartless Mitch McConnell Calls The Government Shutdown a Two Week Paid Vacation:
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) how little he cares about regular people by calling the government shutdown that harmed millions of Americans, “a two week paid vacation.” [...]
Mitch McConnell was trying to spin the unpopular government shutdown to the folks back in Kentucky as a liberal policy, because it gave federal employees a two week paid “vacation.” Unlike a paid vacation, federal employees were not allowed to schedule when they were not going to be at work. These same employees were not paid while they were on “vacation,” and they also had no idea when they would be paid again. [...]
According to McConnell the shutdown didn’t hurt anyone. The federal employees got a paid vacation, and the stock market shot back up as soon as they cut the deal. The Kentucky Senator is ignoring the fact that the shutdown cost the country at least $24 billion, and it threw millions of people out of work. In the world of millionaire Mitch McConnell, he was taking a stand against liberalism by ending the government shutdown
McConnell’s lack of empathy for the people and the nation that his party harmed with their government shutdown is a good reason why in November 2014 Kentucky voters should ditch Mitch.
I'll gladly second that. The man needs to go. Transcript via CBS below the fold.
SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. We welcome to the broadcast the Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
Senator McConnell, Jim Baker, the former secretary of state who led five Republican presidential campaigns, described this recent brawl over trying to tie the defunding of Obamacare to shutting down the U.S. government -- he described it by recalling the words of a long-ago candidate who lost a Senate race in Texas who said, "We shot ourselves in the foot and then reloaded."
Will you ever let something like this happen again?
MCCONNELL: You know, one of my favorite old Kentucky sayings is there's no education in the second kick of a mule. The first kick of the mule occurred back in 1995 when we were -- the Republican House shut down the government.
Look, shutting down the government, in my view, is not conservative policy. I don't think a two-week paid vacation for federal employees is conservative policy. A number of us were saying back in July that this strategy could not and would not work, and of course it didn't. So there will not be another government shutdown. You can count on that.
SCHIEFFER: Well, how badly do you think the country was hurt by all of this?
MCCONNELL: Well, it certainly didn't do the country any good to have, you know, both a government shutdown and a pending fiscal crisis right on top of it. But, look, we're a big, resilient country. You just pointed out how the stock market bounced back immediately. I was pleased to play a role in keeping us from going to the brink. I think it was important to do the right thing for the country. And we did it.
