Looming government shutdown could hurt military families, veterans

This is exactly how the US Congress manages to screw the American people, time and time again.

At this point, the playbook is quite simple:
1) Stall on passing a proper, balanced budget until the last minute. Because Americans wrongfully assume Congress actually does its job, those morons in the legislature can always get away with this, as Americans fail to watch and punish their representatives for failing in this most basic responsibility.
2) Attempt to cram through a piece of ridiculous, pork-laden bullsh*t. If it gets through on the first try, all the better! The Congress gets all the moronic spending they desired. Each one can go ahead and buy that next Land Rover or summer home in cash next year, and the process ends there. However...
3) When that first bill usually fails, it is time to stall again. Dems scream about needing this funding. Republicans--who contrary to popular rightwing belief are just as terrible in this regard--grumble about the need for that funding. In the end, they attempt to cram through yet another bloated omnibus piece of trash that will indubitably blow out the deficit for another year and do nothing but line the pockets of special interests and, of course, the congresspeople themselves.
4) If there are still holdouts or public outcry, it is time for everyone to begin caterwauling about how X group is going to immediately be left bereft of money to keep roofs over their heads, and Y group will die if they don't receive the other funds that they are expecting. Veterans are a popular group to point to because no one wants to come out and deny disabled vets their benefits (at least until those benefits are looked at outside attempting to pass one of these massive amorphous blobs of spending sewage).
5) And this is where the dam almost always, like clockwork, breaks. Of course, no one wants little Timmy to go without Christmas this year, let alone risk that his father the one-eyed, peg-legged Afghanistan veteran living on VA disability will commit suicide over an inability to pay the bills. Congress passes another rubbish bill, the deficit explodes again, inflation ravages the savings of Americans from coast to coast, and all the peons working for the federal government go home this Christmas with a fat raise.

Welcome to the United States. This should be made into a Schoolhouse Rock video.