Try though he may to sound reasonable whenever he's around constituents in northern Wisconsin, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) in truth makes other right-wing Wisconsin Republicans like Sen. Ron Johnson, Rep. Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker look almost moderate on some issues, Obamacare in particular.
But don't just take our word for it; take Duffy's. He's going ballistic as things heat up between warring Republicans in the House and Senate on how to blackmail Democrats into repealing their biggest legislative accomplishment in decades. In Twitter talk, the issue is flagged (as you shall see) by the hash tag #CR, for "continuing resolution." That's lawmaker talk for the currently debated federal budget bill that, if Republicans have their way, would lock in harmful sequestration cuts to discretionary programs and defund the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare.
In short, the debate over #CR is Republican fuzz-talk strategery for, "We're going to have to destroy the government in order to save it."
Duffy is upset, evidently, that rip-roaring fatheads like Cruz lately seem to have blinked, backing off at least a little in their threat to shut down the government and/or let the nation go into government default on borrowing that Congress (including many of those same Republicans) earlier voted to approve. Of course, those walk-backs are already being walked back, thanks to crazy talk from the likes of Duffy, who in other times when he's casting for votes, reconfigures himself as Congressman Ever-So-Reasonable.
Never forget: Duffy is part of the GOP rump cabal that, despite being a minority within a minority, has forced 42 "successful" House votes to "repeal" Obamacare. So successful they decided to do it over and over; all about as effective and sensible as trying to repeal that huge allergy-driven sneeze you just had -- 42 times. There! Feel better, now? No? Then how about we force you into financial default? Yeah. We'll just scare the snot out of you.
Nor should financially beleaguered voters ever, ever forget that Duffy is the political cretin who -- like several other national GOP lawmakers around the country -- openly complained that his $174,000 annual congressional salary and numerous fringe benefits are just so, so hard to live on. What's next? Cutting food stamps except for poor guys like himself?
As for all the truly pressing issues we as a country face -- chief among them creating more jobs, saving the middle class and investing to get the economy moving again -- repealing the Affordable Care Act, even if it weren't politically impossible, would actually make things worse. After all, most nonpartisan analysis says the law actually will create jobs and lower health care costs. But, never mind, say the rump-Duffs in the GOP because....OBAMA.
Forgive us for suspecting too many Republicans perhaps including Duffy intentionally seek to make the economy worse. Never mind that during Obama's tenture the US debt ceiling has been raised fewer times than it was under any other president in the last three decades. See http://wapo.st/SfHF0i
Duffy's biography says that as a kid growing up in timber-ific Hayward, he was into lumberjacking and started log-rolling when he was 5. Well, here it is, many years later, and politically Duffy still appears a juvenile. He's still log-rolling, too, only this time, in the politiical sense of the term, he's trying to trade good Democratic Party laws for bad Republican Party laws.
Submitted for your disapproval, here are several recent Duffy tweets in captures from his account at Twitter.com. So for him THIS is the political issue that matters over everything else and demands constant attention. Not gun violence, or the FBI closing down for ten days for lack of funds, or environmental disasters like Keystone XL. No, for the tea party base, if you're Duffy you've got to hype what the American Prospect called the Obamacare Entropy Act. Read on, and weep for the man's constituents:
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