why are the republicans getting blamed for the shut down?

This shutdown has been in the works for six years. If you want to blame the Republicans, go ahead - they did it just like Gavrilo Princip started World War I.

For six years the Republicans have been fighting Obama's spending. For six years they have been told to sit in the back and watch. They have produced bill after bill, budget after budget, trying to get Washington to stop spending money, and borrowing the money they spend.

Two years ago, when Congress wanted to pass an emergency spending bill to extend unemployment compensation - are you aware that BOTH parties agreed on the extension? Are you aware that BOTH parties agreed on the amount and the length of the extension? There was no disagreement about it at all.

EXCEPT

The Republicans pointed out that there was money earmarked but unallocated in the Stimulus funding that had just passed, and they wanted Congress to find some spending cuts that they could make to fund this extension. The Democrats wanted to pass the emergency bill and just borrow the money. In the end, the Democrats won - and won twice, because they were able to successfully paint the Republicans as "having no ideas" and "hating the poor" and "only caring about the rich" and being "obstructionist" and "the party of NO."

It was unbelievable how few people had any grasp of what that, or any other disagreement was really about; for the most part, the concepts were not the issue.

Of course, there were dozens and dozens of jobs bills and welfare reform bills and ways of cutting spending in Obamacare that were also routinely "referred" to committee, declared DOA or otherwise ignored in the Senate. The unemployment example is just one of many.

So this isn't something that just happened overnight - this has been brewing for a long, long time. When Obama took office, he vowed to cut the deficit in half, but instead he has nearly doubled it. The "Party of No" has been trying to help him keep his promise, but the government simply cannot stop spending money.

So yeah, when Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, it touched off World War I, and when the Republicans finally held their ground the government shut down - but neither event was the actual cause.

Of course, the last time the government was shut down was in 1996 - also the act of a Republican congress. We went from a $250 Billion deficit to a budget surplus after that. Welfare was reformed, and we experienced the biggest shift from Welfare to Employment in the history of that program. You can call it "blame" if you want - but I call it "credit".

Actually that was after the Senate and the White House agreed to the initial Republican requirements, something Eric Cantor described as "a significant policy victory" but then the GOP House reneged on their own deal.

So we reached a deal in Sept, but the GOP pulled the rug out from under that deal and replaced it with something even more unreasonable.

That is why the GOP House is quite correctly being held responsible for this.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements...

it is a game to divert our attention.. the blame game is the biggest farce of all times. this is part of the strategy and the since we are under a plutocracy and only the wealthy have a controlling voice and those in office are puppets on a string we the people count for nothing, We have been force fed delusion after delusion and lie after lie the people do not know up from down any longer right has turn to wrong wrong has turned to right. justice is now injustice and freedom means enslaved and enslaved is freedom. The Republican party is doing what they are supposed to do keep a balance in the house and cabinet. so that one party does not get controlling power (seats).But it appears that the Democratic party has had controlling power (majority seats) for a little too long and got careless and spoiled with having their way unchallenged and now that the Republican party has the controlling power (more seats) the Democratic are upset they cant just push through a bill without a fight over it. This is why our forefathers designed the system the way they did so no one party could control the laws and that the laws were what the people wanted.. it is very apparent that NO ONE in office really cares one iota what the people want and possibly NEVER REALLY DID.. AMERICA was once a great nation but the way i see it; over the past 35 years America is only a shadow of what she once was.. Time to turn her around and get her back to where she once was A GREAT NATION!!!

Speaker Boehner refused to let the house vote on a bill that would have kept the government open just because it did not defund, overhaul, change or hinder the healthcare law. Republicans decided to stake the future of the government on an cause they had already loss. Therefore, they are recieving most of the blame and rightfully so.

The Tea Party planned the shutdown... and left plenty of evidence to rove it.

[In August, while lawmakers spent time in their districts, Meadows wrote a letter to his Republican leaders suggesting they tie the dismantling of Obamacare to the bill that funds the government for the next year. ...

Meadows successfully convinced 79 of his colleagues to sign on to his letter. And he went further, leading a group of 40 lawmakers to demand that the continuing resolution, or the short-term government funding bill at issue, zeroes out funding for President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy achievement so far. ...]

[... Meadows successfully convinced a reluctant [Speaker John] Boehner to go along with his plan. ...]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/politics/house-tea-p...

[Government Shutdown Was Planned For Months By Ed Meese, Koch Bros

The plan to hold funding of the government hostage was plan months in the making, planned by former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese and the billionaire Koch Brothers, the New York Times reports.

A defunding “tool kit” created in early September included talking points for the question, “What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?” The suggested answer was the one House Republicans give today: “We are simply calling to fund the entire government except for the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.”]

http://radio.foxnews.com/2013/10/06/government-shu...

Because the House Republicans foolishly attached the condition that Obamacare be derailed to the Continuing Resolution that had already been negotiated between the Democrats and the Republicans. Without passage of the CR, the government could not be funded and would shut down.

Republicans believed that they could hold the government's funding hostage and thereby force the Democrats to concede on Obamacare. This of course is something that Republicans could never achieve through the normal legitimate legislative process.

Democrats were outraged and refused to cave to the extortionist demands. Republicans carried out their threat and shut down the government.

Now the cowardly Republicans are trying to shift blame because their stunt failed and has made them look bad. They would have been crowing victory if it had succeeded.

Be honest. Look at what actually happened and tell the truth.

Now Reid and other Democrats are claiming they agreed to an earlier CR in September that made $70 billion in cuts. They say the House proposed it, and the Senate accepted it. Then they say the House flip flopped and voted it down after the Senate already passed it.

Funny how we never heard this before, and Obama has not even hinted that any such thing ever happened.

And NOBODY seems to know what these actual cuts were.

It is getting difficult to separate fact from fiction in this kabuki theater.

the media...the media...the media.

They've sent several funding bills. Harry Reid has tabled every one of them. Maybe hes afraid they will pass

both parties have a role in it but since the republicans are the one who is vetoing it they getting blamed