President Barack Obama, as much as House Republicans, shut down the government. He is not willing to compromise on just about any issue, leaving the GOP with no other options.
In 2008, Obama won 53 percent of the popular vote and commanding Democratic majorities in Congress.
Faced with an economic crisis and carrying a mandate to accomplish universal access to health insurance, Obama was justified to take bold actions. However, as the leader of a democracy, he had the obligation to weight the views of the 47 percent who voted for Sen. John McCain and forge consensus where possible.
Yet, over Republican objections, the president abused a fund established to aid troubled banks to bail out GM and Chrysler. To reward autoworkers for campaign support, he confiscated private property by awarding 55 percent of the stock to the union health care trust instead of Chrysler's creditors as U.S. bankruptcy law requires.
He rewarded Wall Street bankers who supported his campaign with new lending regulations that help them acquire regional banks. Now, more than half of the nation's deposits are concentrated among a handful of Manhattan casinos, middle-class Americans can't get decent rates on savings, and small businesses can't get adequate credit.
Obama imposed other regulations in manufacturing and energy production that reward his constituents, punishing his opponents and slowing growth in an economy increasingly challenged to create enough well-paying jobs.
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Prior to the Affordable Care Act, every major piece of social legislation was accomplished by seeking a bipartisan consensus.
Instead, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid wholly excluded Republicans from deliberations and created an unpopular system that compels businesses to purchase health insurance for employees and individuals lacking employer polices to purchase plans through government-run exchanges.
Through town meetings, polls and a Senate election in Massachusetts, Americans expressed opposition. Yet, Democratic leaders packaged the final legislation into a budget reconciliation bill, avoiding the need to win any GOP votes in the Senate—an unprecedented maneuver for such a major piece of legislation.
The individual mandate also raised serious constitutional challenges, but Obama proceeded to warn Chief Justice John Roberts not to mess with his law at the 2012 State of the Union Address. Caving to pressure, Roberts wrote a decision whose legal reasoning few ideologically neutral legal scholars could approve.
Micromanaging one-sixth of the economy is proving a nightmare. Facing huge rate increases and burdensome regulations, businesses are dropping insurance coverage Obama promised ordinary Americans they would be able to keep.
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In 2010, Republicans won control of the House on a platform to curb spending and repeal the ACA. Obama's 2012 reelection was hardly a mandate to implement the law without substantial changes, because Republicans again won the House on promises to repeal the law.
Congressional Republicans behaved badly—demanding wholesale repeal of the law, when they simply don't have the votes in the Senate and Obama is still president. However, in the more recent effort to craft a continuing resolution to keep the government funded, they have indicated significant willingness to deliver what Americans expect: compromise.
It is reasonable to request that the president postpone the individual mandate one year (as he has done for the employer mandate) and that members of Congress obtain their health insurance on the same terms required of ordinary Americans. The president's refusal to accept any changes in the ACA and special treatment for politicians is tyranny.
Terms that Republicans have laid down for raising the debt ceiling—more development of offshore oil, rethinking financial reform and changes to other regulatory policies—are broadly consistent with the public sentiment for a focus on job creation.
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If the debt ceiling is not raised by Oct. 17, the United States need not default on its debt as the president threatens. The Treasury continues to collect taxes, and the president will simply have to prioritize what bills he pays and what services he suspends, and place interest payments ahead of other items.
Peter Morici is an economist and professor at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business, and a widely published columnist.