Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
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Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#2Won't happen. The die-hard Republicans won't ever let go of their ability to kneecap a Democrat government when they feel like it.
Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#3Won't happen. The die-hard Republicans won't ever let go of their ability to kneecap a Democrat government when they feel like it.
There are Democrats on board, the bill can pass without them.
Also AFAICT the bill still has a kneecap strategy. If a funding deadline is missed, Congress must focus solely on spending bills. IOW it shuts down Congress, not the entire government. Sounds right to me.
Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#4Having worked for a company that worked directly with the government, these shutdowns are such a frustrating waste of man hours. They’re also demoralizing to people working on projects that are suddenly unfunded. Stopping shutdowns would be a huge step in the right direction.
Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#5Good luck with that.
The Constitution explicitly says that revenue bills must originate in the House.
There's no way the current House is going to approve anything like this, which these Senators know perfectly well. Probably no House would -- the House and Senate are extremely jealous of their prerogatives, and always have been.
It's basically just posturing for the cameras, the same way that both parties do any time there's a "government shutdown" in play. Nothing truly essential ever gets "shut down", but the politicians get to blather for a TV audience. Then when the "shutdown" is over over, all the government employees who were furloughed wind up getting paid anyway...in effect, having received a bonus paid vacation.
The amazing thing is that the public keeps falling for this financial theatre, time and time again.
Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#6Good luck with that. The Constitution explicitly says that revenue bills must originate in the House. There's no way the current House is going to approve anything like this, which these Senators know perfectly well. Probably no House would -- the House and Senate are extremely jealous of their prerogatives, and always have been. It's basically just posturing for the cameras, the same way that both parties do any tim…
FYI, the government didn’t shutdown when there was a funding gap until the 80s.
Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#7Good luck with that. The Constitution explicitly says that revenue bills must originate in the House. There's no way the current House is going to approve anything like this, which these Senators know perfectly well. Probably no House would -- the House and Senate are extremely jealous of their prerogatives, and always have been. It's basically just posturing for the cameras, the same way that both parties do any tim…
House and Senate being jealous of their prerogatives is kind of a myth. The US Congress has punted on declaring war, for example. We've had plenty of wars since 1941 without such a declaration.
Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#8If Congress were forced to forwgo pay and perks during shutdowns, there would be fewer of them
Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#9Something seems funny to me about this bill.
The article seems to state:
> the legislation has more Republican co-sponsors than Democratic backers at the moment, raising questions about just how many Democrats might sign on.
And I can't for the life of me think why Democrats wouldn't sign on to this bill unless it doesn't do what it says it does (prevent gov't shutdowns)?
The best I can think of is that the terms of it must not be favorable in the interim? So Republicans would be less incentivized to get some spending bills through? (Nothing so permanent as a temporary fix that works). In which case this would risk hamstringing Congress' ability to just pass laws.
It's hard to imagine that being worse than congress' own ability to hamstring itself, but I guess we might see.
Re: Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
#10Something seems funny to me about this bill. The article seems to state: > the legislation has more Republican co-sponsors than Democratic backers at the moment, raising questions about just how many Democrats might sign on. And I can't for the life of me think why Democrats wouldn't sign on to this bill unless it doesn't do what it says it does (prevent gov't shutdowns)? The best I can think of is that the terms of…
Two things:
1. From a policy standpoint, limping the government along in two week increments is a bad way to run a government. You can't start or stop programs when the budget is "do more of the same". And if the bill contains some kind of provision for only doing "essential" programs, that can be used to shut down large swaths of the government indefinitely.
2. From a political standpoint, there's a saying: "never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake". Government shutdowns are popular with certain Republicans, but it's widely seen as irresponsible. Republican leadership doesn't want a shutdown, but they are stuck an anti-government wing of their own party. (The alternative is to ignore them and work with Democrats, but the anti-government wing has threatened to remove the House Speaker if they do.)
So Democrats are not particularly incentivized to help out the House Republicans. Even if it were good for the country (see #1) it reinforces the internal politics of the Republican party that treats Democrats literally as enemies of the state. They don't want to be seen as giving in to threats.
Democrats may end up signing on to the bill anyway. They're just not co-sponsoring it, which would limit their ability to frame the bill in a way that suits their priorities.