The rumors swirling around Washington is the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is going to cancel the House’s (hard earned?) September Vacation, from Monday, September 25 to Friday, September 27!

Why? It is NOT because he wants to have meetings with the Senate to compromise on the Farm Bill (Including refunding SNAP), or the 2014 budget, or the debt ceiling. (Remember that raising debt ceiling is done so that the govenment can pay the bills they already authorized to spend.) It is because his fellow republicans need time to create, and agree on, ways to defund Obamacare and/or Shut Down our Government.

By law, the budget is supposed to be approved before October 1, the first day of the 2014 Fiscal Year. The House leaders want to pass a short term budget (thru December 15) which would contain a provision to defund Obamacare. Some republicans are worried that the Senate could approve the short term budget extension, but dismiss the portion that contains the Obamacare defunding.

Paul Ryan is working on a plan to delay Obamacare by offering the money saved by not implementing it to be used by agencies effected by the sequester.

Other republicans are devising plans that link Obamacare to increasing the debt ceiling, which is scheduled to run-out between October 18 and November 5. The thought is to pass a bill that the President won’t sign. Then the Republicans can blame him for the government shutdown.

It may take a long time for these republicans to agree on anything of these plans.

The financial realities have been written about in detail in newspapers, magazines and on-line. The problems have also been discussed on cable news shows. Here are links from two Friday, September 13 MSNBC programs. The first one is to The Rachel Maddow Show. She explains exposes new sequester concerns and then explains the path the republicans are taking to use their ‘self-made’ crisises to exploit their desires to embarass our President by getting rid of Obamacare and shutting down the government. The second video is from MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes that focuses in the debt ceiling and shutting down the government. The conversation generally analyzes the republican party’s lack of direction and how that might injure our financial future.

Budgets, debt ceilings, and the threat of shutting down the governemt are not toys for  our so-called leader to play with.

Enjoy the next few days of calm before a political hurricane hits the country.

Related articles

• ‘This is not a safe way to govern the country’ (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• Another Obama Success That Republicans Can’t Handle As Deficit Shrinks to 5 Year Low (kstreet607.com)
• Republicans Are Holding America Hostage Again (dish.andrewsullivan.com)
• How Does the Debt Ceiling Affect Me? (lexingtonlaw.com)
• Crazy pills: the politics of government shutdown and federal default (arktimes.com)
• ‘What Defunding Means’ (economistsview.typepad.com)
• House GOP wants to tie Obamacare to debt ceiling debate (tv.msnbc.com)