It’s not often that I post about politics. I’m very much of the mindset that you are more than welcome to your opinion and I am welcome to mine. I don’t dislike people because of their beliefs and am proud to be a part of a society that allows political freedom and choice.

Until today. The long and short of it is that our government needed to have a finalized budget by midnight last night in order to avoid a government shutdown. The Republicans seem to be stuck on the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), which went into enactment today. They refused to ratify the budget (I know, I’m making it very simple) and therefore forced the country into a shutdown. Over a bill that will provide health insurance to the roughly 15% of people who are uninsured today. A bill that the people of the United States of America voted for. That the Supreme Court ruled as constitutional.

The best part of all of this is that Congress still gets paid. Thanks to the 27th Amendment, Congress does not have the ability to change their pay, which prevents them from giving themselves raises. That’s a good thing. The bad side of that is it also prevents them from freezing or cutting their pay. Here’s the crappy part… some of the Congress members such as Republican John Fleming (from Louisiana) have said they would donate their pay to a charity during the shutdown because “obviously we need to share the pain of the American people“. Yes, because the thousands of furloughed federal works who have lost pay surely feel that some rich congressman donating his paycheck to charity makes it all ok.

Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you’re on, I think we can all agree that this is a childish, despicable act on the part of Congress. I am blown away that in a time that the American economy is just starting to rebound we would unnecessarily force ourselves into a shutdown that has no impact whatsoever on politicians and is devastating to the American people. What kind of statement are we sending to the rest of the world?

Today I’m not so proud to be an American.