Lowdown on the Shutdown

You may think that this poem's on the deficit,
So kindly allow me to preface it
That the shutdown impending
Is not about spending;
There's no one who even professes it.

It's a high-stakes political drama,

Unneeded if heads had been calmer,

A tactical ruse

By those who refuse

Affordable Care from Obama. 

The Tea Party Capitol faction

Appears to take no satisfaction,

Though we're not in the black

In the age of Barack,

That the deficit's cut to a fraction. 

The foregoing limerick is just a reminder that, as the US federal government heads toward a shutdown over the parties' inability to agree on a budget, that the budget itself is not the issue; neither are debts and the deficit. Although the fact is not well publicized, and has more often been deliberately obscured, the federal budget deficit has been cut in half since President Obama took office in 2009. 

The the intractability of the fight over the budget is therefore a strategy by the House Republicans, and especially their Tea Party faction, to throw yet another attempted roadblock in front of the rollout of Obamacare.