Francis Wilkinson, Columnist

Republican Hostage Game Has Only Just Begun

Republicans will try again to extract spending cuts by holding the U.S. economy hostage in future government shutdowns.

October 11, 2013 at 7:42 PM UTC

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

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Democrats seem delighted. The new NBC/Wall Street Journal pollshows Republicans sustaining historic levels of damage amid the government shutdown, with the party's favorability falling to a dismal 24 percent and 70 percent of Americans concluding that Republicans are putting partisan politics ahead of the common good.

But Democrats shouldn't be thrilled; they should be terrified.