Pelosi: Washington Cautioned Against 'Saying No to Government'

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi referenced the “Father of Our Country,” George Washington, to castigate the GOP for the government shutdown. She said:

What the speaker is doing is doubling and tripling down [on] a path that it was always intended to take us to shutting down government. [The GOP has] wiggled this way and that to keep being very resourceful to come up with ways to shut down government. Because as [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid said, they don’t believe in government. They’re anti-government idealogues. This is a proxy fight for really the debate on the extent of government, and that has been a debate in the history of our country, but to say no government, that’s what President Washington cautioned against.

Polico reported that Pelosi referred to Washington’s Farewell Address, in which  he said:

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Of course, Politico and Pelosi did not reference other parts of the Address, which would have taken issue with ObamaCare. For example:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Compare that to ObamaCare’s attack on religious institutions.

“No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.” Ask Pelosi how Obamacare’s right to existence as a ta is pleasant for the American people.

“…for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable.”