For those unfamiliar with the American federal government, today is sort of a special day here, the beginning of fiscal year 2014. Ordinarily, Congress passes appropriations legislation to fund the government for every fiscal year, but this is no ordinary year. This time around, we’ve got a load of Tea Party anarchists sitting in the House of Representatives, telling the rest of the government to give in to their bizarre demands or else the government gets it.
Whenever history (not to mention the American government) breaks, I usually head over to Newseum to peruse their collection of newspaper front pages from across America. Today, many of them are fairly grim. Here are a few of my favorites:
I just love the signage on this cover, although the “partisan bickering” subtext seems to imply that boths sides are equally intransigent. Given that one side is using the federal budget to retroactively kill a bill that was passed by both houses, signed by the President, and validated by SCOTUS, while the other side is trying to pass an unconditional “clean” continuing funding resolution, doesn’t seem like a fair assessment of the situation at all.
This one is actually upbeat, despite having the Capitol building backgrounding the cover. It translates to something like, “Key moment – Obamacare goes into effect today with the challenge to make people understand their rights under the law.” Something good is indeed happening today, because of the federal government, and that despite the budget trainwreck. Naturally, these two major developments are inextricably interrelated, the bad news from the Republicans is designed specifically to squelch the good news from the Democrats.
Well at least the NY DAILY NEWS isn’t mincing any words here, as “the GOP holds the country hostage.” You have to sit back and relish the unintended implication from the low bar: In this time of profound fiscal uncertainty, one should perhaps consider playing the lottery, because “Hey, you never know.”
