The federal government is going to shut down this weekend, barring some miracle. And Democrats really need to make sure Americans know exactly who insisted on this avoidable crisis. It’s the House GOP, as I explained at New York.
If you are bewildered by the inability of Congress to head off a government shutdown beginning this weekend, don’t feel poorly informed: Some of the Capitol’s top wizards are throwing up their hands as well, as the Washington Post reports:
“’We are truly heading for the first-ever shutdown about nothing,’ said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. Strain has started referring to the current GOP House-led impasse as “the ‘Seinfeld’ shutdown,” a reference to the popular sitcom widely known as ‘a show about nothing.’ ‘The weirdest thing about it is that the Republicans don’t have any demands. What do they want? What is it that they’re going to shut the government down for? We simply don’t know.’”
That’s a bit of an exaggeration. Many House Republicans, led by a band of right-wing hard-liners, want to impose their fiscal and policy views on the nation despite the GOP’s narrow majority in the House. Their chief asset, beyond fanaticism, is that the federal government can’t remain open past the end of the fiscal year without the concurrence of the House, and they don’t really mind an extended government shutdown, if only to preen and posture. They are being encouraged in this wildly irresponsible position by their leader and likely 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump.
But the hard-liners’ real motive, it seems, is to use the dysfunction they’ve caused in the House to get rid of Speaker Kevin McCarthy for being dysfunctional. The not-so-hidden plan hatched by Florida congressman Matt Gaetz is to thwart every effort by McCarthy to move forward with spending plans for the next fiscal year and then defenestrate him via a motion to vacate the chair, which just five Republicans can pass any time they wish (with the complicity of Democrats). Indeed, the Post reports the rebels are casting about for a replacement Speaker right now:
“A contingent of far-right House Republicans is plotting an attempt to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker as early as next week, a move that would throw the chamber into further disarray in the middle of a potential government shutdown, according to four people familiar with the effort who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.”
McCarthy’s tormenters would like to have a successor lined up who will presumably be even less inclined to compromise with Democrats than the current Speaker. And that’s saying a lot, since McCarthy has already bowed to the Gaetz demand that House Republicans reject even the idea of a continuing resolution — the stopgap spending measures used to forestall or end government shutdowns in the past — and instead plod through individual appropriations bills loaded with provisions no Democrat would ever accept (e.g., deep domestic spending cuts, draconian border policies, anti-Ukraine measures, and abortion restrictions). It’s a recipe for a long shutdown, but it’s clear if McCarthy moves a muscle toward negotiating with Democrats (who have already passed a CR in the Senate), then kaboom! Here comes the motion to vacate.
Some observers think getting rid of McCarthy is an end in itself for the hard-liners — particularly Gaetz, who has a long-standing grudge against the Californian and opposed his original selection as Speaker to the bitter end — no matter what he does or doesn’t do. In theory, House Democrats could save McCarthy by lending a few “no” votes to him if the motion to vacate hits the floor, but they’ve made it clear the price for saving him would be high, including abandonment of the GOP’s Biden impeachment inquiry.
So strictly speaking, the impending shutdown isn’t “about nothing”; it’s about internal far-right factional politics that very few of the people about to be affected by the shutdown care about at all. Understandably, most Democrats from President Biden on down are focusing their efforts on making sure the public knows this isn’t about “big government” or “politicians” or “partisan polarization,” but about one party’s extremism and cannibalistic infighting. For now, there’s little anyone outside the GOP fever swamps can do about it other than watch the carnage.
I’m trying to keep my powder dry, but with the release of the swift boat ads, I’m beginning to think that it’s time MoveOn, or some other 527 make an ad attacking Bush’s VietNam service, starting with the line, “The Republicans spent XX$ producing a political ad attacking Kerry’s military record. Perhaps it’s time we looked at what George W. Bush was doing during the VietNam war…” then they could ask some tough questions about how many men he jumped ahead of to get into the TX natl guard, and how many men were sent to VietNam and died there so that the Shrub could sit on his backside swigging beers at the local cantina missing drills.
Frankly, I think it’s time to get dirty.
Don’t get too antsy, boys and girls. It is still a long way from August to November, and the days grow short in late October. There are two debates coming up. I see a real key here in framing the issues prior to those debates so as to set an agenda for them. I’m expecting at least one question to Kerry about the $87 billion vote, and another on the vote to authorize the Iraq fiasco. That will be when Kerry needs to have the right answers, but he’ll need to be consistent with what he says now. What he has to do now is set up the message to come from those debates and to establish low expectations for himself in those debates and higher expectations for George Bush.
Now if there were only a way to fix things so that someone would ask Bush about sovereignty…
Kerry and company need to stay ahead tho.. and not let Bush set the topic of the day by directing questions at Kerry.. they need to diffuse that nonsense and get Bush on the defensive some more..
Meanwhile, it seems Bush is really vulnerable on nat’l security. Unlike 2002, the more moves he takes, the more America realizes that a lot of time has gone by and yet not a lot has been accomplished. And because it all depends on framing the possibility of terror, which can be interpreted in any way even on the most clear days, there is near inertia in his numbers.
Of course, the sad spectacle of his CIA chief nominee being outspooked by Michael Moore: http://martinirepublic.com/item/cia-chief-nominee-outspooked-by-michael-moore …won’t help with prospective converts, either.