Incompetence in a Losing Game

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | Oct. 11, 2025

We don’t care who’s to blame for the government shutdown. That politicians think we do is just more evidence of their remarkable incompetence.

The federal government has shut down 10 times since 1980, and each time it was because one party or the other believed punishing the people they are supposed to be representing was somehow politically advantageous. They tell us they are all about serving their constituents, but no constituent has asked them to lock government’s doors or quit writing checks already promised.

Both parties have engaged in this idiocy, a rite of bipartisan incompetence proving both sides are incapable of completing even their most basic responsibility while engaging in a zero-sum game of finger-pointing. They are desperate to make us believe somebody else is to blame, or they have some honorable reason for shuttering needed services. They will be wrong on both accounts, and the 343 million Americans watching know it.

This isn’t a game to most of us, and no one is winning. There is a reason the most recent Gallup polling shows the approval rating for Congress at an abysmal 26 percent, a well-earned failing grade by any known standard, and yet we keep sending the same folks back to Washington to continue doing almost nothing except creating more tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and corporations.

Refusing to do their jobs and then spending endless hours blaming others for their rank incompetence is tiresome, bordering on embarrassing. While both sides claim victory and blame their opponents, neither side seems willing to sit down and solve whatever superficial political grandstanding differences exist. Here’s a hint: None of us think you’re winning, but most of us do think you’re losers.

We would have better luck if we removed all 535 members of the current incompetent Congress and replaced them with 530 people, three smart dogs and two clever cats picked at random off the street. Remove any hint of political party labels, put them up in a resort for the weekend, and by Monday morning, they would have produced a functional budget.

States and cities, even those with serious political divisions, produce budgets year after year after year. Private sector businesses large and small produce budgets, and even our households produce budgets. For some reason, the invertebrates now occupying Congress can’t seem to be able to do what everybody else does.

Speaking of incompetents, Bobby Kennedy, Jr. has nearly completed his dismantling of our federal healthcare system by removing many of the actual scientists and legitimate researchers from the ranks at Health and Human Services (HHS). He fired his own chief of staff and the second in command because they would not sign on to a negative report about vaccines. He removed all 17 members of the vaccine advisory committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after promising he would not during his confirmation hearings. He claimed the removals were necessary to “restore public trust.” Somewhat ironic since it was his constant denigration of vaccines that harmed public trust, not the actions of the vaccine panel.

There were other departures, but their big news was the nonsensical announcement warning about using Tylenol during pregnancy because Bobby the Lesser wants it to be the cause of autism or ADHD or other neurodevelopmental issues or…something.

Kennedy claims there might be such a connection based on…well, we’re not really sure because there is no peer-reviewed science that links acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, with autism or other issues.

Autism is an incredibly complicated condition manifesting itself in a wide variety of ways, ranging from near total debilitation requiring a lifetime of care to highly functioning individuals appearing symptom free. It’s why it’s called a spectrum.

Acetaminophen, which Kennedy wants to blame for the spectrum, was first synthesized in 1878 but was not marketed or used widely for pain relief until the mid-1940s. Tylenol wasn’t even invented until 1955, though autism was first identified in 1911. If Tylenol causes autism, how come autism existed at least 44 years before Tylenol?

It’s not as if there has been no research on the subject.

A study conducted in Sweden from 1995-2019 looked at just under 186,000 children who had been exposed to Tylenol while their mothers were pregnant or during their infancy. It is the largest such test ever undertaken trying to determine if a connection exists between Tylenol and the autism spectrum of disorders.

They concluded there is no increased risk of autism, ADHD, or any intellectual disabilities associated with the use of Tylenol during pregnancy.

No medicine of any kind is 100 percent safe. There is even such a thing as a water overdose. But there is no provable evidence that Tylenol causes autism or anything else other than some relief from mild pain and fevers.