The act of replacing a high-priority action with a task of lower priority, or doing something of no importance at all and thus putting off important tasks to a later time is procrastination. The real issue, and problem with procrastinators, is ignoring the urgency of a high-priority task and in America, Republicans never place a high-priority on spending and the national debt until there is a Democrat in the White House that has been a regular occurrence dating back to the Reagan era. The priority for the last two Democratic presidents has been cleaning up the fiscal mess left by their Republican predecessors, and invariably, Republicans complicate matters by threatening to shut down the government to confound the Democratic president’s clean-up efforts and punish the people for electing a Democrat in the first place.

If it were not so serious, it would be comical that Republicans have the ability to prioritize reducing spending and the nation’s deficit when a Democrat is in the White House, because during Republican administrations, out-of-control spending and rising debt are the lowest priority possible for allegedly fiscally responsible conservatives. During George W. Bush’s administration, Dick Cheney reminded Americans over the course of eight years that Ronald Reagan said “deficits don’t matter,” and then on January 21, 2009 after Bush left President Obama a $1.2 trillion deficit for fiscal 2009, deficits instantaneously became Republicans highest priority next to cutting safety net spending and reducing the deficit they ran up for two unfunded wars, unfunded tax cuts for the rich, and an unfunded Medicare prescription plan.

Now, Republicans claim that the nation cannot procrastinate addressing eight years of Republican debt and out-of-control spending any longer, and to force the President to clean up the fiscal mess they left the country faster, are making very serious threats to shut down the government and default on the debt they racked up during the Bush era. Shutting down the government is a favorite ploy of Republicans during Democratic administrations and it informs more that Republicans are wreaking vengeance on the voters for electing a Democrat than fiscal policy, but that is the price Americans have had to pay for rejecting Republican presidential candidates.