Steven Holt: “Today, the House is finally, at the 11th hour, voting to re-open the government and avert a financial disaster by…”

“Today, the House is finally, at the 11th hour, voting to re-open the government and avert a financial disaster by avoiding a default on our debt. The bill keeps the government open until January 15, 2014, and raises the debt ceiling until February 7, 2014. This is a stopgap measure, and my fear is that we will face another manufactured crisis again a few months. We should have never gotten to this point, the majority should have never caved to the vocal minority in the House. This bill ends an unnecessary, self-induced crisis. It fails to end sequestration's painful cuts in government services. It fails to invest in creating new jobs. It follows costly weeks of government shutdown and unnerving the financial world. It sets up the alarming prospect of new confrontations over the budget and the debt ceiling early next year. Ever since this phony crisis began, a majority of the Congress-- Democrats and Republicans alike--have sought to reopen the government. Yet Republican leaders, out of misguided deference to the reckless ideologues in their ranks, refused to allow a vote on clean legislation to reopen the government. Today that finally changed. The Speaker allowed the majority of House members to work their will, and as a result, our government has reopened and the U.S. can resume paying her debts, as we have for centuries.…”