My thoughts on how to end the shutdown

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It is day 3 of the "hostage crisis" more affectionately known as the "government shutdown" (or government "slimdown" if you read FoxNews).  The hostages of this leadership debacle centered in Washington D.C. are the jobs of 800,000 Federal employees whose jobs have been furloughed as a result of this process.  I have a few friends in this group.

I will leave my opinions about who's right and who's wrong to myself.  Okay - maybe.  I wish that this childishness in our government would come to an end, and perhaps it may with a change of leadership.  However, people have families to feed, mortgages to pay, and jobs to do (such as my friends at the CDC), so I thought I would offer some "real solutions" to help motivate our leaders to take action.  And to be honest, I'm not going to be too partisan with this list so I'm sure that you'll equally laugh or be offended at some of these suggestions.  That said, here are my top ten.
  1. (This was actually posted on a CNN blog) For as long as the shutdown continues, the American taxpayer gets a refund of their taxes equal to the number of days the shutdown occurs.  We pay into the tax system to have a "working government" (I mean, does it actually really work?) and while we don't even have a dysfunctionally "working" government we should get our money back.
  2. Cancel vacations and golf outings for all Congressmen/women and ESPECIALLY President Obama while the government is in shutdown.  I fully believe that if the President can't play golf, he'll be pretty motivated to compromise with the House.
  3. Have the House send back a resolution that they will fully fund ObamaCare (aka - the "clean bill") under the provision that all congresspeople have to sign up for insurance on the exchanges.  
  4. Pass a resolution that states that if an agreement isn't reached within a week, Dave Ramsey will be put in charge of the Treasury. 
  5. Start a filibuster in the Senate where they actually read the Health Care Law and it's resulting lists of regulations word-for-word... come to think of it, that may extend the shutdown.  Cut that.
  6. Promise Congress that they'll get an all expense paid trip to an island paradise if they get an agreement.  Then drop them off and forget to send a plane to pick them up.
  7. Pump the FoxNews into the Senate, NPR into the House, and the Rush Limbaugh Show into the Oval Office (until a bill is signed).  
  8. Cut Michelle Obama's wardrobe budget.  It's not "essential," but don't tell her that.
  9. Read the Tea Party the Constitution.  Specifically the part that states that if the Supreme Court rules a law constitutional, then it is the law.  Even a bad law  (heck, remember Prohibition - how many years did it take to repeal that one?), but it's still the law.  Sorry - I voted to "repeal and replace" (whatever that slogan that Romney had) in 2012 - my side lost.  We gotta live with it now. 
  10. Or perhaps the old fashioned write your congressman or congresswoman and ask that they act like an adult.  There are 800,000 folks depending on them to do that.  
Any more?  I'd love to hear your take.  

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