Interesting thread. We just got back from DC Sat night. I wanted my 9 year old daughter to experience our nation's capitol with her mother and I before she goes with her 8th grade class.

If you've never been to Washington DC, save up, pack up the family and go! It's expensive but I promise you it's more than worth it. EVERY citizen should spend some time in the capitol of this great country.

We were there during the govt shutdown hysteria, and the overwhelming sentiment in the area was that it was the Republicans' fault. Not surprising considering the demographics and their voting preference. Also they make up a large contingent of the 800,000 federal government employees.

Anyway, after being scanned/security checked twice, we sat in the House of Representatives gallery about 9 hours before the shutdown deadline Friday. The budget issue was before the Senate, but we watched them vote in the 'Internet Neutrality' resolution.

Pretty interesting seeing the pols you normally see on the news in person. Charlie Rangel was the only one standing by himself aside from some mostly asleep really old guys, and our guy, Brett Guthrie had his 2 kids with him. They were all in small groups that near as I could tell were mostly along party lines, but a few transcended the Rep/Dem line.

After the given Committee Chairman (sorry don't remember his name) hammered away and announced the Internet Neutrality resolution a done deal, Paul Ryan, Chair of the Committee on the Budget took the floor and told the Reps to expect to continue working.

Meanwhile I was quietly talking to one of the ushers, a very sharp young man. He said the talk around the halls was the House would come up with a last minute resolution to temporarily fund the government. He said there really wouldn't be a shutdown. The kid was dead on the money.

My conclusion is there was never that much danger of a shutdown in this particular situation, just plenty of politics and manipulation of the frenzied media morons.