An open letter to the Republican leadership in Congress

Ladies and Gentlemen,

You are about to shut down the government for the 13th time since 1980.  For only the second time since 1995.  The most recent shutdown was over your intransigence over the Affordable Care Act.  Now you're going to bring the federal government to a screeching halt over the question of funding for Planned Parenthood.

The issue of funding Planned Parenthood is an important one for many of you and I recognize that you hold strong positions on that issue.  But this is not a significant justification for disrupting the lives of millions of people.  People who will be denied access to government services deemed "not critical" enough to keep them operating.  Government employees will not be paid for the work they aren't doing, but under the perverse way such things take place, once the funding faucet is turned back on, they'll get paid for having done nothing.

This is ridiculous.  Madness.

I pledge that I personally will work to ensure that every single Republican (and Democrat, if any) who brings about this shutdown will never again be elected to Congress.  I will seek to get every other American who believes in the values this nation was founded on to do the same.  If you are so petulant about one single issue that you will force the entire government to shutdown, you do not have the requisite majority to act as our elected representatives.

You have been warned.