By turning our democracy into a game of high-stakes poker, Congressional Republicans—with the support of the President of the United States, 95 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 45 Democrats in the U.S. Senate—not only pushed through draconian austerity measures that will fall like a ton of bricks on our struggling economy, they managed to twist the terms of debate toward achieving their long-standing goal to “shrink government” by severely reducing or eliminating social programs that are vital to the health and economic well being of millions of middle class and low-income families.