If Obama gives in on govt. shutdown policy, can he still win re-election?

The battle over the 2011 budget and government shutdown is not about money. Democrats and republicans have an agreement on the dollar amount of budget cuts.

“Our differences are no longer over the savings we get on government spending, Reid said. “The only thing holding up an agreement is ideology,” according to MSNBC News.

At the heart of that ideology are issues that define the Democratic Party, and history may reflect it as a turning point in the Obama presidency.

The republicans are using the budget bill as a way to promote their radical views on the role of government as it relates to corporate pollution, financial regulation, and women’s rights; all core issues.

Tea Party freshmen refuse to budge on holding the entire country hostage to their pro-big business views. They think corporations should be free to pollute at will, no matter what the consequences to the general public or the environment. They feel the same way about financial regulations signed into law after the 2008 economic meltdown caused by Wall Street gambling with packaged mortgages.

The other major sticking point is women’s rights. Abortion is legal in the United States; that is a fact. But the Tea Party and republicans are against it. So they are using any means they can find to stop the practice, including manipulation of funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides breast cancer screenings and other health care services to more than a million women each year.

If President Obama ends of making a deal with the Tea Party and GOP that includes allowing what amounts to a complete corporate take-over of the government regarding public safety regulations, can he still call himself a democrat? Furthermore, does it diminish his chances for re-election in 2012?

There has been admission by Republican leader Mitch McConnell that the only goal of the Republican Party is to make Obama a one term president. Destroying the economic recovery might bring them closer to that goal, and shutting down the government would influence that as well. Furthermore, the budget cuts the GOP has proposed will not create a single new job. In fact, the GOP budget will cost 800,000 jobs, according to CBC news.

Since taking over Congress in 2011, the GOP and Tea Party have made it very clear that they have no interest in doing anything to help the American public as a whole move forward with job creation and economic growth. The facts speak for themselves. The GOP held the Obama Administration hostage at the end of 2010, by blocking important legislation until Obama agreed to extending the Bush tax cuts to America’s millionaires. The move violated republican alleged principals by adding to, instead of reducing the deficit.

In the government shutdown showdown, the GOP is once again holding America hostage over the rollback of clean drinking water, food safety, and other regulations that protect the public from corporate polluters and Wall Street gamblers.

These are not insignificant issues by any means. The outcome will shape the future of the nation and negatively affect the lives of 300,000 people.

If Obama hopes to retain a chance of re-election, he needs to prove to his base that he is still a democrat. He will not achieve that if he agrees to sell out the American people to the corporate funded interests of Tea Party Republicans. The only ones who favor a free for all on unregulated pollution are the businesses that create it.