“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

The Republicans are at it again. Undaunted by the failure of their previous 40 attempts to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare, Republicans are now trying to tie the raising of the debt ceiling limit to delaying the implementation of Obamacare. Setting aside for a moment arguments about costing money/saving money, job growth/job killer, etc., let me step back and ask two basic questions….

Dear Republicans: what part of “the bill is passed” do you not understand?

Dear Republican House Representatives: what part of “representative democracy” do you not understand?

On March 21, 2010, the House passed the Senate’s bill – their version of the Affordable Care Act – with a vote of 219 to 212. That’s YOU, dear House of Representatives, YOU. You. Passed. The. Bill. It was signed into law on March 23, 2010. That is how our republic works.

Republicans increasingly are being seen as not the party of “limited gummint”, but the party of gumming up the works. That doesn’t save taxpayers money, it costs money. Using the figures from one estimate , this unrelenting, now 41-foot-stomps-and-counting repealing temper tantrum has cost taxpayers around $60 million, and there is nothing to show for it. That figure doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story of legislation that hasn’t been worked on, or held-up appointments that are hindering the work of federal agencies.

Wait…legislation not worked on…appointments not confirmed…I’m beginning to believe this quixotic quest (and to say that is glamorizing it far too much) is actually a dodge to keep from doing the work of governing. It makes them look like they’re fighting for the taxpayer when from all appearances their purpose seems to be to do as little as possible. They’ve taken that axiom “that government is best which governs least” to such a pathological extreme that they’re even willing to shut down the government.

The Republican Party seems to need a psychiatric intervention, or at the very least a serious time-out. That’s undoubtedly what they’ll get in 2014 and 2016 if they don’t stop the ‘but-I-don’t-waaaaaaaant-it’ temper tantrums.