I cannot believe how weak and cowardly my former political party has become.
/facepalm
The Republcians can't risk shutting down the government because even though everybody who gets up and goes to work every day to support themselves and their families never really notice it when the government is "shut down", the massive Democrat party base of moochers would soon find their snouts hitting the dry bottom of the public trough, and Republicans can't let that happen because then they will never get their votes...
Wait.
What?
Become? Please enlighten me on the time period in modern history that the GOP has been tough and aggressive?
It certainly wasn't the 50 years the Democrats ran the House, where Republicans led by the likes of Bob Michel played nice ALL the time. Other than Reagan, former Republican Presidents Ike, Nixon and Ford may as well have been Democrats. Heck we got price controls, the EPA, etc out of Nixon. The Bush's? Please. Jr. gave us a whole new entitlement and spending most Democrats would be proud of - and this with a GOP congress most of the time.
This is about as tough as the GOP has ever been in our lifetimes.
The bottom line is the GOP WILL cave on this in the end. Obama will almost certainly win a government shutdown, and therefore Kraut is probably right. I'm fine with making a fight out of this, but it isn't hard to see how it will likely play out.