After Action Report on the Government Shut Down

The wrecker caucus within the Republican Party failed in their attempt to perform a late-term abortion on Obama Care. After 16 days of folly the wreckers succeeded in damaging the Republican brand name and escalated the civil war inside the Republican Party that will certainly rage until at least the 2016 convention. It won't be pretty.

Strange as it may seem the wreckers were rescued by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who enshrined the 2011 sequester in the upcoming budget negotiations. The congressional negotiators will be fighting it out on Republican terrain which makes it likely the Republicans will eke out a small victory with respect to spending and taxes. Furthermore government as a whole has taken a big hit, and for better or worse, it will be harder to rally the country for the domestic and international tasks ahead.

Meantime the Obama Care roll out has been disaster. The entry website is not working; it is not a technical glitch, but rather a fundamental software failure. Simply put the back end of the software may not be working which means inaccurate information is being sent to the health insurance companies. This is more than a software failure, it is a fundamental management failure on the part of the Obama Administration. Let's face it President Obama is not a manager and it looks very obvious there was very little hands on control over the past three years on the implementation of his signature program. At the very least HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius should be fired.

Over the longer run, despite the explosive rally in the stock market, the U.S. will pay a big price in the global financial markets for threatening to default on our debt. It means the dollar's status as a reserve currency has been devalued. It means higher interest rates, a weaker dollar and a loss of geopolitical credibility. For the wreckers to even threaten default  was criminal negligence.

Taking a step back our country has been through this before. 75 years ago this Veterans Day Kate Smith introduced Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" to a national radio audience. True the country was divided about the coming European War, but she offered hope. We still live in a great country and I think you will enjoy the following clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zF7a0wB-Lg