Seeking principled compromise, the Republicans in the House of Representatives offered a continuing resolution which defunded Obamacare while funding the other functions of govenrment. The US Senate removed the defunding provision, returned the legislation to the lower chamber. The House of Representatives then passed a continuing resolution with a one-year delay on Obamacare's individual mandate plus a repeal of the medical device tax. Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has declared that bill dead on arrival.
Reid is at fault for his automatic refusal to compromise.
However, not only will US Senate Majority leader Reid take the blame for a partial shut-down, but ultimately the fiscal fallout will fall on President Barack Obama, who has bolstered the unbending Senate Majority Leader, even at the cost of individual Americans' job opportunities and health care options.
As chief executive, Obama is responsible not only for executing the nation's laws, but also compromising with Congress to create legislation. However, he has unilaterally repudiated his own legislation, pushing back the employment date of the employer mandate and the small business exchanges until 2015.
As President, Obama is responsible for working with Congress to enact laws which uphold the Constitution and protect the rights of the states and the people. Compromise is an essential prerequisite of leadership, yet the president has abandoned this essential element in order to promote an agenda opposed by the majority of Americans, a position reflected by the more populist chamber of Congress.
Refusing to compromise, the President of the United States has become a compromised leader, one who demands legislation according to his political dictates without the input or agreement of opposing parties, then backs away from the same without Congressional approval.
Touting his law while advancing his own campaign causes, President Obama has labeled the Republicans and fiscal conservatives in Washington "hostage takers", and he has stressed that he will not negotiate with "terrorists" over the budget.
Yet he refuses to negotiate altogether.
The federal government has three branches, and even though Republicans only retain one half of one branch, their representation represents the growing disillusionment of the country with the Affordable Care Act. From the medical device tax to the Medicare exchanges, the 2,500 page law passed on forced reconciliation has become less popular, more unmanageable, and ultimately untenable.
Yet the President refuses to recognize the will of the people, the lay of the Constitution, or even the law of the land.
Notwithstanding the law's widespread unpopularity, the President has refused to compromise on its core components, including the individual mandate. Republicans have documented and published the Affordable Care Act's unaffordability. Single mothers in Texas, older residents in New Jersey, and union members across the country oppose the costly provisions of this law.
Still the President attacks Republicans instead of meeting with them.
President Obama has compromised what little integrity he had with hollow epithets against fiscally responsible members of Congress. He had not negotiated his stimulus package in 2009, or his health care law, and he pushed Congress to its limits with the debt ceiling debate and the fiscal cliff brinkmanship. At the end of 2012, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reached out to the slightly more collegial vice President Joseph Biden to reach a last-minute fiscal cliff deal, which raised taxes on small business owners.
Obama calls tax increases "math". The country considers such maneuvers madness. Republicans respect the country's opinion on this matter.
Obama has asserted that he will refuse to negotiate on the debt ceiling, funding the government, and even on the Keystone Pipeline extension. In effect, he refuses to dicuss key policies which will employ Americans and maintain some semblance of economic recovery.
Obama has called on the President of Iran to broker a deal on their nuclear program. He has reached out to Arab nations to apologize for American grand-standing in the Middle East. He was willing to sit down with the leaders of major labor unions to hear out their growing frustration with Obamacare, yet President Obama will not sit down with Congressional leaders to work out a practical, purposeful compromise on fixing the law, nor will he broker any deals for reducing our nation's debt or enacting policies which will encourage economic growth.
President Obama is compromised, uncompromising, and thus refuses to compromise on anything.
The President has articulated a Progressive vision of government hostile to the Constitution and inimical to the best interests of the country. Yet the very Constitution he has ignored has also become the very charter charting a steady record of his compromised tenure in office.
Despite an insurance mandate which has mandated rising premiums, which have man-handled physicians out of the medical profession, which has wrangled working Americans with more paperwork and higher taxes, President Obama still will not compromise on this law.
Obama's economic policies have concerned global bond-holders, disturbed by surging levels of government debt. His foreign policy has emboldened rogue states while diminishing Western allies. Convicted of his stance, Obama will not back an inch away from a mission of greater government intervention.
Uncompromising to the end, President Obama is altogether compromised.