Gary Franks: Both Sides Failed Us in the Shutdown

The longest federal government shutdown has finally come to an end. Now, the question on everyone's mind is: Who emerged victorious and who suffered the most?

In my opinion, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have taken advantage of the American people. They've treated them like pimps use women or like Jeffrey Epstein and his associates abused underage women—entirely for their own benefit. Our founding fathers could never have imagined that elected officials from across the country would repeatedly "use" the American people for their political games.

Politicians in Washington seem to take pleasure in harming the vulnerable and using them as pawns to elevate their own importance and self-satisfaction.

Why does this happen? Because of a lack of courage, laziness, always seeking the easy way out, ego, excessive ambition, incompetence, or simply doing what they want because they can.

The American people have allowed themselves to be used, but this must stop. Here’s how we can put an end to the constant political abuse.

The general job description for our federal government leaders should include the following basic tasks:

1. Develop a budget to determine how they will provide necessary services and security for the American people.
2. Raise the revenue needed to support the funding of government expenses.
3. Pay the federal government’s bills that have been mandated by law.
4. They should not spend more money than they take in. If they manage to do so, they wouldn't need to raise the debt ceiling anymore. Instead, they could start reducing our $38 trillion national debt.

Two constitutional amendments are needed:

1. A balanced budget amendment with a yearly budget produced on time;
2. A spending bills amendment which would fund the government with prior authorization and through "regular order."

Failure to implement these changes would mean that all members of Congress, the president, and vice president would face a penalty. They would be fined a fee equal to 25% of their adjusted gross income, making it an equitable penalty for violating the new laws created by the amendments.

This would ensure that we will never have to go through this again. We can no longer accept that individuals not doing their job are allowed to hurt innocent Americans who are trying to do theirs—a totally insane loop that our government has fallen into.

They are making being a federal worker the worst possible occupation in the nation, except for those causing the mess—members of Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court justices. The way they disrespect federal workers—including soldiers and air traffic controllers—and their families is a national disgrace. The risk they put our nation under is the height of political malpractice. We have to hope and pray that during a shutdown, planes do not crash and our enemies do not advance their sinister objectives. And let us not forget the never-before-seen “hunger games” the Congress and White House are playing against the poor.

Suffice it to say, despite the arrogance of our leaders, when our government is not working properly, we are not in a good place.

Our state legislatures must demand a constitutional convention to adopt the aforementioned two recommendations to end government shutdowns, as well as a couple other amendments. Let’s add one that establishes age limits for federal officials—they cannot hold office after the age of 80, as well as term limits to mandate an orderly political change, since elections do not always work as it is very hard to beat an incumbent. This was the rationale for adopting term limits for the president.

The folks in Washington who feel they are invincible are not. They will see that we the people put them in their roles and we can force them out when they fail us.

Democrats, if you pick a fight, you need a plan. Your plan that bets on the other side caving in is not a plan. To demand that Obamacare subsidies be extended for a year in order to reopen the government—at the cost of what Trump “gave away to Argentina”—was doomed to fail.

This was a strategy backed by precedence. Congress in the 21st Century has repeatedly displayed a love for merely “kicking the can” down the road. To have extended the tax credit subsidies for two years or even one year would be the procrastination strategy. And it would be a “split the baby” approach as both sides would get something—opening of the government for Republicans who control Washington and a continuation of Obamacare subsidies for Democrats, though temporary.

At the onset, I warned Democrats that with Trump as president, allowing the federal government to close would be like giving an alcoholic a drink—not smart.

Trump wants to be a king. Getting rid of the filibuster is Trump’s path to gaining legitimacy for his empire. All laws that he has broken can be made legal retroactively by a sycophant-robotic Republican majority in the House and Senate. That was the goal, Democrats. And continuing the shutdown would have given Trump the ammo to get the most pro-democracy Republican senators to eventually cave in and grant the removal of the senate filibuster for Trump. Then Trump would have re-named the White House the “House That Trump (partially) Built.”

So, I thank the eight Democratic senators who decided that it all had to come to an end. They did a heroic act. History will show that they did not just open the federal government for a few months, they prevented the anointing of America’s first king.

Let us remember, there are a huge number of Democratic senators and congressmen who also would like to see the filibuster eliminated. Yes, it would help the radicals from the left as much as it would help the radicals on the right. And ultimately, we would have put our nation on an irreversible downward spiral just prior to its 250th birthday.

And let us all remember America’s anti-monarchy roots, even though some people in America today would actually embrace the chant, “Long live the king!”