Forcing a shutdown would destroy what little bargaining power the GOP has—and its slim majority.


By Karl Rove/WSJ
A stupid, needless government shutdown looms. The culprits aren’t Democrats but hard-right House Republicans who say they won’t agree to a bipartisan continuing resolution to fund the government when the fiscal year ends at midnight Saturday.

They mean it. Twice last week, five Republicans voted with Democrats to stop the House from taking up a Republican-drafted Defense Department appropriations bill. It was an unprecedented breach of party discipline.

This Chaos Caucus’s leader, Florida’s reckless Rep. Matt Gaetz, is practically giddy at the prospect of a shutdown. Though he voted for the Pentagon funding bill to protect his Armed Services Committee seat, he is heading the opposition to a bipartisan continuing resolution. Failure to enact such a stopgap measure this week would mean a shutdown, which Mr. Gaetz predicts in six or eight days will produce “maximum momentum on paradigm-changing” pressure on Democrats to make deep spending cuts.

What blather. Democrats know that when federal offices are shuttered, services curtailed and our military goes without pay, voters generally blame Republicans. And this time they’d be right to do so. Knowing this, Democrats will insist on significant concessions to reopen the government. The shutdown could go on far longer than its advocates predict, and each additional day will provoke more public anger at the GOP.

The damage will likely go well beyond the shutdown. There are 18 GOP representatives in districts President Biden carried in 2020 that will be endangered by these shenanigans. Republicans won the five closest races that flipped control of the House by a combined 7,169 votes of 1,379,398 cast. It doesn’t take many stupid stunts to lose that many votes.

The Chaos Caucus is willing to risk the GOP’s narrow majority because they believe, as Virginia Rep. Bob Good puts it, that most Americans “won’t even miss it if the government is shut down temporarily.” As Mike Myers’s Dr. Evil says, “Riiiighhht.”

When power in Washington is divided between a Democratic president and Senate and a GOP House, the only way for Republicans to make fiscal progress is to negotiate patiently, provide strong and effective messaging and make Democrats take tough votes. It’s the height of arrogance and ignorance to assume that this time—unlike every other time—shutting down the government will make the White House and Senate Democrats give in.

But Mr. Gaetz and his band of egotistical performance artists either are certain they’re the exception to history or don’t care. Take Chaos Caucus member and Arizona freshman Eli Crane. Based on his vast governing experience, he declared in a video during his workout in the House gym, “The only way we’re going to get any change in this town is through force.” Not by persuasion or legislation, but “through force,” as if that phrase means anything.

This amateurish narcissism is perhaps unsurprising, considering the ingrates in the Chaos Caucus. Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s fundraising entities—the Congress Leadership Fund and Take Back the House PAC—and the National Republican Congressional Committee spent a combined $2.8 million to elect Mr. Crane in 2022. He won by 8%. He has repaid Mr. McCarthy’s generosity by raising a mere $1,000 for the NRCC this cycle, and he supports removing the speaker if the House passes a bipartisan budget deal.

Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale was another GOP nay vote on the defense bill. He received $600,289 of support from the McCarthy PACs, mostly for his competitive 2020 race. This cycle he’s raised $5,000 for the NRCC.

North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop was another nay vote last week. The NRCC plowed $3.1 million into his 2019 special election and Mr. McCarthy’s PACs $2.6 million. He won by 2%. He’s raised nothing for the NRCC this cycle—he’s leaving Congress and is busy running for state attorney general.

Then there’s Mr. Gaetz, safe in his deep-red Florida district. He’s one of the GOP’s most prodigious fundraisers, collecting $6.7 million last cycle. But he raised zero for the NRCC last cycle and this. That won’t change. He’s likely hoarding cash for a 2026 gubernatorial run.

Mr. Gaetz and his fellow travelers forget that conservative progress in Congress requires team effort and that the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good—especially when Democrats control the Senate and White House.

Believing that less than two dozen GOP members can dictate to the rest of the government—particularly a hostile Senate and president—is fantasy. It’s also a perversion of the vision the Founders had of a national legislature where power was diffused, compromise essential and incremental change desired.

Because the Chaos Caucus won’t grow up, a shutdown is likely. That will hurt America—and Republicans. This sort of self-absorbed performance art comes with a political cost.

Karl Rove was never much of a conservative. He's a political hack, all he worries about is bargaining power and his whiteboard predictions.

Spend Spend Spend the stolen loot, print the rest, we've got 57,000 Ukranian public servant salaries to pay and a proxy war to fund and we've got to keep the military industrial complex fat and happy! Screw the US proletariat suckers, they'll continue to pay though the nose with taxes and inflation, gubmint shutdown or not. It took them only 3 months to rack up the last $1 Trillion of debt, a world record. Let's go for 30 days next! Keep the crazy train rolling faster and faster until it derails.

OUTRAGE! In US Government Shutdown, DC Will Continue To Pay Thousands Of UKRAINIAN Salaries!

Daniel McAdams

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/outrage-in-us-government-shutdown-dc-will-continue-to-pay-thousands-of-ukrainian-salaries/ 

SHUT IT THE FU CK DOWN

Screw all those UKRAINIAN F U K S ....

NO PAY FOR THEM IF IT SHUTS DOWN....

F U K em'

Matt Gaetz is a cartoon character with a WIG...

So you are jealous of his hair?

Well...I was never tormented by such inessential covetousness.

Getting back down to earth, I do approve of his message in this case.


MIC DROP: Matt Gaetz Blasts Government Spending and Senator Bob Menendez in One Classic Line (VIDEO)

By Mike LaChance Sep. 27, 2023 9:20 pm

I personally find it funny as hell that Gaetz (the guy you Robert, peddled was some sexual deviant with ZERO proof) is now wielding the power over the House Majority leader and the House to do it's one singular job. Deliver a budget. Not some DNC wishlist. Not some Chinese phone book legislation that nobody has the time to read, and lobbyists actually wrote. In this battle Matt is right. America is broke. It's time to start ending the insanity. The World Bank is NOT going to give us the same treatment as a German unification, or USSR dismantle towards their debts. Its time to pay the piano player if you want to dance to the music he's making.

If you don’t fund my programs then you’re a racist, sexist, jomofobic Nazi.

Probably.

60% of the time it works all the time.

I think that's what Democrats do when they are exercising bargaining power.

I wish someone would have told the members of Congress sooner that the government fiscal year ends at the end of September.

They were too busy taking breaks and vacations and stuff. 😟

Apologies for my spelling error

Why does the Federal government have a thing called “non-essential employee?”

Because it covers to other 99%?

A Government Shutdown for Dummies

A band of malcontents refuses to support funding bills while accomplishing nothing.


WSJ Editorial Board
The old saw is that faculty politics are so bitter because the stakes are so low. The same principle now seems to hold sway in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is on the verge of shutting down the U.S. government in order to achieve—nothing at all.

Funding for the government runs out at the end of the fiscal year at midnight Saturday, and a handful of House backbenchers have refused to vote for bills to keep it open. On Friday they blocked a bill that would have kept it open for a month while also reducing spending, fortifying border security, and creating a bipartisan fiscal commission.

This stopgap bill would have failed in the Senate in any case. And a Senate bill to keep the government open for 47 days with $12 billion for disaster relief and aid for Ukraine also can’t pass the House without Democratic votes. But the GOP malcontents promise to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy if he passes something with Democrats. Bluto and the Faber College boys in “Animal House” couldn’t have come up with a more stupid and futile political gesture as this looming shutdown.

The responsibility lies with the likes of Florida’s Matt Gaetz and Arizona’s Andy Biggs, who seem to want a shutdown as a show of political manhood. They certainly won’t end up cutting any spending, and a shutdown will probably result in more. Republicans control only the House, so a bipartisan agreement is inevitable to fund the government.

But this isn’t really about policy at all. If it were, House Republicans would have passed the 12 annual spending bills that they could then negotiate with the Senate. It’s their only chance to get something past President Biden’s veto pen. Yet until this week the same Republicans calling for “regular order” in appropriations and who slam continuing resolutions were blocking spending bills out of pique.

The real goal of the malcontents seems to be to topple Mr. McCarthy for personal spite. If Mr. McCarthy is forced to seek Democratic House votes, the Democratic price will be even more spending. Then the Gaetz Republicans will call for a motion to vacate the chair, and Mr. McCarthy could lose his speakership.

But then what? What suicidal imperative would cause anyone else to sign up to be Speaker? At this point it’s like volunteering to be the next wife of King Henry VIII. The result is unlikely to be different.

It’s a shame that a handful of holdouts are able to hold the entire GOP House hostage. Most House Republicans came to Washington to check Democratic spending and achieve what else may be possible in divided government. They put a ceiling on spending in the debt-ceiling deal this year, but they risk giving that back with the shutdown stunt.

It’s all so pointlessly stupid, with failure foreordained. Their constituents wanted conservative policies, but the Gaetz Republicans are playing personal games.

^ see post 8

Preemptive cliff notes

House Passes McCarthy’s Bill to Avoid a Shutdown, Sending it to the Senate

The measure omits aid for Ukraine, includes $16 billion in disaster relief


WSJ
WASHINGTON—The House passed a measure to extend government funding through mid-November after a coalition of Republicans and Democrats joined ranks to stave off a government shutdown, putting the matter squarely in the hands of the U.S. Senate.

The House voted 335-91 for the measure, which includes $16 billion in disaster relief but omits aid for Ukraine. That exceeded the two-thirds majority needed to clear the bill through the House, which considered the legislation under special procedures requiring a supermajority of votes.

Before the vote, House Republicans argued that the party had exhausted its options after dissident conservatives derailed an earlier plan, and said that the only choice now was to pass a bill extending funding at 2023’s $1.6 trillion annual rate through Nov. 17. That squares with major components of the approach being taken in the Senate, except that the Senate version includes an emergency $6 billion for Ukraine.

“I want to keep government open,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said after a closed-door conference meeting earlier Saturday, noting that the House still needs to pass eight of 12 spending bills. “I am asking Republicans and Democrats alike. Put your partisanship away. Focus on the American public.”

Some Democrats had worked to rally their members against the legislation, arguing against omitting aid for Ukraine and saying that Republicans had pulled a fast one by advancing a bill that they said would enable a pay raise for members of Congress. But Republicans moved to fix the cost-of-living increase matter, and also questioned why Democrats would be willing to shut down their own government in the name of supporting Ukraine.

The move to advance the legislation marked a major turnabout for McCarthy, who had spent months trying to appease a dissident flank that rejected his every offer. McCarthy advanced spending bills that at a net $1.471 trillion for fiscal 2024 were widely seen by Democrats as breaking his debt deal with President Biden. McCarthy then revised his approach, offering to advance bills with even steeper cuts while also saying that any stopgap measure must simultaneously provide for new restrictions on migrants. They rejected that as well.

“I have tried for eight months,” McCarthy told reporters. “It took me a long time to finally get the appropriations bills on the floor; they were delaying. I tried yesterday with the most conservative stopgap funding bill you could find,” he said. “I couldn’t get 218 Republicans.”

So I heard this biach of Biden's who checked the right boxes for the job of White House Budget Director (whatever that is, probably just another regime propaganda office) scaremongering about what effect and government shutdown and the "devastating cuts" that Republicans were offering would do, how women, children, grandma and grandpa were going to starve, 12,000 FBI agents, almost 1000 ATF agents, and more than 500 local police officers will lose their pay checks, how the economy will suffer and national security will be harmed and a whole bunch of other scary stuff.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/09/29/watch_live_omb_director_shalanda_young_joins_kjp_at_wh_briefing.html# !

I was totally unmoved. Any government that is so centralized, that does so many unconstitutional things, where so much power resides to loot, control and make such a large swath of masses dependent on its largess is way too big.

Matt Gaetz is a DEEEEKS with plastic hair and DIPPTY DO

Ukraine doesn't need one more dime of hush money. They've laundered enough of our tax dollars for the big guy.