There really does need to be an entrance exam to getting your name on a ballot. The latest argument for this is GOP freshman Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA).
Now, freshmen Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) is also parroting the notion of a pain-free shutdown. ThinkProgress caught up with Kelly at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Though he stopped short of supporting a government closure, Kelly defended the potential consequences of a shutdown. He argued that even if there is a shutdown, the government is “not going to stop, people aren’t going to lose their Social Security checks and they’re not going to lose their access to Medicare and Medicaid”:
KEYES: If these cuts, either defunding or dismantling Obamacare, either dies in the Senate or dies at Obama’s veto pen, would you be willing to join Jim DeMint and others who have said that this is worth trying to have a showdown and potentially a government shutdown just to show how serious we are about this?
KELLY: I don’t know that you have to have a government shutdown. We can do things with funding. At the end of the day, Congress controls the purse strings. So when you defund and you take the funding away from certain things, you in fact shut down that part. But shutting down the government, nobody wants to hear that. The other thing is, I don’t like that terminology of shutting down the government because really, it’s a fear factor. People know it’s not realistic. The government is not going to shut down, it’s not going to stop. People aren’t going to lose their Social Security checks and they’re not going to lose their access to Medicare and Medicaid. I think we have to be careful when we use that kind of talk. I think what we’re talking about is, look, we control the funding, let’s make sure we’re doing the right thing for the people.
KEYES: So even if that were to happen, theoretically, it wouldn’t be as bad as people make it out to be?
KELLY: No, I don’t think so. I really don’t....
Kelly’s assertions are simply not true. One need look no further than the federal government shutdown of 1995 for proof. During the nearly four-week shutdown, Social Security checks were not mailed and Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements were disrupted.
Now, what could happen is that every member of Congress and all of their staff are put to work doing the jobs of the Social Security and Veterans Administration employees who are shut out of their jobs, making sure that those checks go out. Short of that, it doesn't happen. And, yes, Rep. Mike Kelly is still an ingoramus.