- Congress now seems prone to keep away from a authorities shutdown this week.
- The plan to take action would commerce a big shutdown now for 2 potential ones afterward.
- If this sounds dumb, it is as a result of it’s.
Government shutdowns are dumb. It is genuinely excellent news that the nation is prone to keep away from one this coming Friday. And but, this being Washington, America’s elected officers have discovered an exceedingly idiotic method to fulfill one among their fundamental obligations.
Under a plan backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, the federal authorities can be funded via the brand new 12 months. After that, completely different businesses would face completely different deadlines for potential partial authorities shutdowns. For instance, funding for the Pentagon and veterans would run out on January 19. Funds for the State, Justice, and Health and Human Services division can be prolonged till February 2.
In brief, the plan to keep away from a bigger authorities shutdown now could be to commerce it for the opportunity of establishing a number of smaller shutdowns sooner or later. It’s why the lawmakers tasked with writing the laws that funds the federal government have strongly dissed the thought. The White House even weighed in over the weekend earlier than House Democrats began to heat as much as Johnson’s plan.
Here are only a few of the very best quotes concerning the plan.
“That’s the craziest, stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who leads the Senate Appropriations Committee, advised reporters.
Murray’s Republican counterpart, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, mentioned she had ” a lot of reservations” about it.
“You’d have to go through the threat of shutdowns of part of [the] government over and over again,” Collins mentioned, per Punchbowl News. “So, it doesn’t seem to me to make a lot of sense. But I’m willing to hear more about it.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, mentioned Johnson’s method sounded “gimmicky” however he can be open to it.
The White House deemed it an “unserious proposal.” It’s seemingly now President Joe Biden will signal it into legislation.
Despite their criticism, a few of these similar lawmakers might vote for the plan. For Democrats particularly, Johnson’s plan comes with out the poison drugs comparable to slashing a Cabinet secretary’s wage to simply $1 or limiting entry to abortions that always accompany payments that fund simply the Pentagon or a group of different departments. It’s additionally the identical technique that helped result in former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.
On its face, the plan avoids Congress’ vacation custom of ramming via hundred-page payments funding the federal government full of different unrelated measures all to jam lawmakers desperate to flee the Capitol to see their households. It’s virtually unimaginable on your elected officers to learn each phrase of what they’re voting for. To be clear, that too is a nasty method to govern.
Lawmakers from each events perceive that shutdowns are dumb. The follow of holding everybody from service members to vacationers desirous to take pleasure in a National Park hostage is unseemly. (I ought to word right here that former White House chief of workers Mick Mulvaney, who additionally led the company tasked with formally shutting down the federal government, thinks the Obama administration was too harsh in its dealing with of a 2013 authorities shutdown. But it’s telling that now we have reached a stage the place triaging the fallout is the more than likely consequence.)
The hostage-takers hardly ever get what they need. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas did not cease Obamacare. President Donald Trump did not get more cash for his border wall. And Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s colleagues tore into him after he compelled a short shutdown in 2018.
“This is the stupidest thing to happen to Congress in three weeks,” an unnamed Senate GOP aide advised Politico on the time of Paul’s transfer.
Trump is likely to be accountable for the one good thing to come back out of a current shutdown. After funding runs out, each events historically squabble over who’s accountable for the calamity. But then there was Trump who boasted within the Oval Office in 2018 that he would “own” what was then a attainable shutdown.
If it is bugging you, the stupidity has now grow to be the characteristic. As I used to be penning this story about how Johnson’s plan is the dumbest factor Congress has achieved, Sen. Bernie Sanders needed to cease one among his colleagues from throwing down with a union boss. Then former Speaker Kevin McCarthy might or might not have elbowed one among his Republican critics within the again, after which bragged about how sturdy of a puncher he’s.
After all, that is Washington, if one thing appears silly now simply wait slightly bit. It will get will get dumber.
