Right now much of how these Budget Talks will depend (on) who is less able to take the heat as the blame game hits the opening whistle.
The reason is simple, because the GOP came after Medicare and Medicaid.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With only six more days to reach a budget deal with the Republican Congress, President Clinton promised to veto any budget plan with deep cuts in Medicaid, the health care program for the poor and disabled.
"If necessary I'll veto these deep cuts in health care for children again, and again, and again," President Clinton vowed in his weekly radio address broadcast Saturday.
Clinton vetoed a budget plan Wednesday which cut Medicaid and Medicare considerably more that the budget proposal offered by the White House.
The president said the Republican budget proposal which trims $163 billion from Medicaid over the next seven years "would repeal the guarantee of health care for poor children, people with disabilities, pregnant women and older Americans."
Let's remember that Affordable Care Act is already scheduled to save $500 Billion in Medicare spending without cutting the quality of service by striving for more efficiences. It actually brings the Medicare Trust Fund into Surplus, but the GOP ignores this and instead wants to Repeal that plan - which mirrors the Clinton Reinventing Government initiative that ultimately helped bring our budget into Balance- and implement even more Draconian Cuts with the Ryan Plan.
More than 800,000 so-called "non-essential" federal workers will be temporarily laid off if the government shuts down. Many received the word on their computers by e-mail telling them to come to work Tuesday morning no matter what they hear on the news. If they are not needed when they arrive, they will be told to go home.
"I'm surprised to some extent that they use or hold employees of the government hostage to an agenda that really has nothing immediately and directly to do with those employees," said Stanley Cohen who works for the Department of Education.
The uncertainty is hitting hard at some places like the Smithsonian Institution's Sackler Gallery.
"We panicked for a while that the catalogs would not arrive for the opening. Now that we have the catalogs, we're panicking that the opening may not take place," said Jenny So, who has been working on the exhibit for the Smithsonian.
Furloughing Federal Workers means closing the Grand Canyon, the Washington Monument, the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Tetons, the Smithsonian, Yellowstone and Yosemite.
It means that every person working at those sites won't be getting paid, and will have to sruggle to make thier bills - housepayments, credit cards, groceries.
And the Shutdown itself had a direct impact on Real People.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The shutdown of the federal government has reminded many U.S. citizens how much they depend on it every day. As Republicans and the White House tenaciously hang on to their stances over the balanced budget bill, the effects are being felt far outside of the Washington Beltway.
Home buyers applying for VA or FHA loans could face delays in their move-in dates if the shutdown continues. Mortgage applications are not being approved. These are loans made by private lenders, but guaranteed by the federal government.
The Grand Canyon remained officially closed Saturday, although tourists were sneaking peeks at nature's wonder from highway overlooks and on airplane tours. Arizona Gov. Fife Symington held out hope that the White House could be convinced that National Guardsmen should be used to re-open the park, which he argued is essential to his state.
Guests were forced to check out of the Volcano House Hotel and Restaurant at the Volcanoes National Park on the Hawaii's Big Island. The hotel was full, since this is the height of its season.
Public access to the thermal water in President Clinton's hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas, was shut-off when the shutdown began. Hot Springs National Park officials closed the valves to spigots at four public access points, where the 143-degree mineral water normally flows.
The chickadees were still singing at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge near Minneapolis, but few people were there to hear them Saturday. Most of the 30 refuge employees were furloughed, canceling the usual school tours. Just one worker was in the 9,000-acre refuge Saturday.
Duck hunters were in a fowl mood in northeastern Louisiana, because three national wildlife refugees were closed Saturday, the opening day of duck season.
Hunting elk was deemed essential at Grand Teton National Park, allowing federal workers to stay on the job there and at the National Elk Refuge near Jackson, Wyoming. Government officials determined the annual hunt must continue, since it helps control the size of elk herds.
Ginny Green, a Minnesota mom, was stuck in Salvador, Brazil, unable to get a non-immigrant visa for the 4-month-old girl she adopted last week. Her husband, an orthopedic surgeon, was struggling in St. Cloud, Minnesota, with his four other children, waiting for the U.S. State Department to get its funding restored so his wife can return home.
Five Wisconsin residents may have to cancel their study tour of Germany because they have no passports.
Mary Ann Sutton won't see her 3-month-old granddaughter until the shutdown ends. The Littleton, Colorado, grandmother can't get a passport to travel to Germany to see Sarah Brand, who lives with her soldier parents.
Americans can use an expired passport or a birth certificate to get onto the Caribbean island of Barbados. They won't get much help from the U.S. embassy there, however, since it was reduced to a skeleton staff by the federal shutdown. Only emergency services are offered, the U.S. Ambassador said.
The layoff of five gravediggers at the Arsenal Island National Cemetery, near Rock Island, Illinois, has placed a bigger burden on the three diggers not furloughed. Paperwork is piling up, they said, as veterans continue to die at a quick pace, despite the government shutdown. There were 13 burials over the last four days, they said.
800,000 Federal Workers Furloughed and unable to meet their debt obligations. National Parks, such as the Grand Canyon, Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument, Mount Rushmore, Yosemite, and Yellowstone all Closed which directly impacts tourism and small business near those sites. No new Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid applications processed. Pending Federal Tax Refunds on paper Will Not Be Processed. No new passports or Visas. No Paychecks for our Troops and their Families. No personnel to man the National Cemeteries , meaning that any fallen troops can't by buried.
Bad as all that is, that's not all as this doesn't just furlough workers it also causes payments to States and Federal Contractors to be put on hold.
Two-hundred Mississippi social workers could be furloughed next week, if the shutdown continues. Officials said the state Department of Human Services must get a $9 million federal payment, or else. The division deals with protective services for children and vulnerable adults, foster care, and adoption placement.
In Oklahoma, state officials said hundreds of employees of the Department of Rehabilitation Services could be furloughed soon, because of a shutdown of federal funding. These workers handle benefits for disabled people.
Thousands of New Hampshire residents braced for a colder existence, because of the federal shutdown. Local offices that distribute federally-subsidized fuel assistance can't do it this year until the government is restarted. Eligible households received an average of $400 each last winter.
The AIDS Ministry in Richmond, Virginia, was scrambling for private donations to replace the federal money which normally provides half of its budget. Sixteen AIDS patients live in the ministry's two facilities.
The city of Nogales, Arizona, may be stuck with the bill for treating Mexican sewage that is piped across the border. The federal government usually pays about $80,000 a month to Nogales for the service.
So this will ripple out all across the economy, affected states in a variety of ways impacting people who may be depending on Federal support and supplements who probably don't even realize that that is the case.
Federal Contractors won't be paid, not just Blackwater/Xe but also GE, General Dynamics and Boeing. If this goes on long enough - They - might have to layoff their workers also, and now your talking serious impacts to places like Seattle, Houston and South Carolina.
That last government shutdown in 1996 lasted 21 days. The Republican House and Senate sent President Clinton a Bill that included $163 Billion in cuts (over 7 years) in Medicare funding and he Vetoed It.
And now they want to do it again, so they can block the EPA from doing it's job and helping us move toward a greener economy. Nevermind Global Warming, going Green is a Good for America and American Jobs and would help us cut our dependance on Foreign Oil - but they say "NO". They want to defund Planned Parenthood, supposedly to stop it's ability to provide abortions - which are legal - besides the fact that their revenue stream for funding those services has nothing to do with the Federal Government, and the services that the funding does support happens to be vital preventive care for women, including birth control that can prevent abortions.
If these are the issues they're going to go to the mat over - and it looks like they will - then just like the previous attempts to defund Medicare, the blame will go exactly where it belongs.
On the GOP.
Vyan