Tom Harkin: “the responsible leaders in Washington are working hard to find a compromise to fund the government through the end of…”

“the responsible leaders in Washington are working hard to find a compromise to fund the government through the end of the year. Regrettably, however, many Republicans in the House-- spurred on by tea party radicals--are still threatening to throw a temper tantrum and shut down the government if they don't get all of their demands. This morning, the Washington Post reports that Speaker John Boehner received an ovation from the Republican caucus when he told them he had directed the House Administration Committee to prepare for a shutdown, as Congressman Mike Pence, former head of the Republican Policy Committee, shouted at a tea party rally last week, ``Shut it down!'' So it seems what we are confronting is kind of a monolithic House driven by the tea party vigilantes, as I refer to them, to brook no compromise. They want it all their way or they are going to shut down the government. Republicans are seizing on the budget crisis as a pretext for ramming through their longstanding ideological wishes. In Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere Republicans are using the budget crisis as the pretext for an assault on public sector unions and their hard-working teachers, firefighters, prison guards, and others. On Capitol Hill Republicans are using this crisis to try to defund health care reform, to gut Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and, yes, to cut tax rates even more deeply for the wealthiest in our society.…”