By Robert Reich - The issue we are about to face as a nation has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act or any of the other of the demands Republicans are making. It has to do with political extortion: Republicans' threats to close the government or default on the nation's debts if they don't get their way. The President and the Democrats must not negotiate. Once you start negotiating with extortionists, there is no end to it. Extortionists will hold the nation hostage again and again. Any law on the books they don't like, any tax their wealthy patrons detest, any regulation their corporate bank-rollers would like to do away with, any subsidy or bailout their Wall Street underwriters desire, will be fair game. Let Republicans carry out their threats. Let America see them do it and experience the consequences. And then let us send the Republican Party into the dust bin of history.

Status Update

By Robert Reich

The issue we are about to face as a nation has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act or any of the other of the demands Republicans are making. It has to do with political extortion: Republicans' threats to close the government or default on the nation's debts if they don't get their way. The President and the Democrats must not negotiate. Once you start negotiating with extortionists, there is no end to it. Extortionists will hold the nation hostage again and again. Any law on the books they don't like, any tax their wealthy patrons detest, any regulation their corporate bank-rollers would like to do away with, any subsidy or bailout their Wall Street underwriters desire, will be fair game.

Let Republicans carry out their threats. Let America see them do it and experience the consequences. And then let us send the Republican Party into the dust bin of history.