>>>>It's happened.
>>>
>>>has the sky fallen ?
>>
>>And you can thank the intransigence (sp?) of Harry Reid and Obama for it..
>
>The US govt system seems a bit weird from over here. How can you elect a government that can't govern. If the republicans don't like what Obama is doing shouldn't they be ensuring their man (or woman) gets elected next time. As I understand it this tactic usually backfires onto the non president side.

Exactly.
That's how the framers wanted it.
They had had enough of powerful government and wanted to limit its abilities to do much beside wage war.
Unfortunately, they didn't limit the wage war part enough, or they'd have done a perfect job.

It seems, however that those parsimonious house Republicans are selective in their parsimony:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/john-boehner-hill-obamacare-subsidies-97634.html?hp=t1_3