There’s really not much drama going on in Congress lately, but a manufactured crisis could shut down the federal government right in the middle of the general election season, as I explained at New York:
Kicking cans down the road is an essential skill in Congress, particularly when partisan control of the government is divided, as it is now. Routine decisions like keeping the federal government operating must await posturing over essential laws each party wants to enact but does not have the power to impose. And that’s why there seems to be a perpetual threat of a government shutdown — which is what happens if either house of Congress or the president refuses to sign off on spending authority — and why Washington typically lurches along from stopgap spending deal to stopgap spending deal.
The most recent stopgap spending deal expires on September 30, the last day of Fiscal Year 2024. There’s been some back-and-forth about the length of the next stopgap based on changing calculations of which party is likely to be in the ascendancy after the November election. But this normal bit of maneuvering suddenly turned fraught as Donald Trump bigfooted his way into the discussion on Truth Social not long before he debated Kamala Harris:
“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET. THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO “STUFF” VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN — CLOSE IT DOWN!!!”
The backstory is that in April, when Speaker Mike Johnson was feeling some heat from the House Freedom Caucus over allegedly “caving” to Democrats in the last stopgap spending fight, the Louisianan scurried down to Mar-a-Lago to huddle with the Boss. Johnson announced he would do Trump’s bidding by introducing a bill to outlaw noncitizen voting, the phantom menace that is one of Trump’s favorite stolen-election fables. Those of us who understood that noncitizen voting (of which there is no actual evidence beyond a handful of votes among hundreds of millions) is already illegal shrugged it off as a MAGA red-meat treat.
But Johnson forged ahead with a House vote to approve the so-called SAVE Act. After the Senate ignored it, he included it in the first draft of his new stopgap bill. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, figured it would be dropped when negotiations got serious. But then Trump made his latest intervention and then, worse yet, Johnson couldn’t get the votes to pass his stopgap and get the ping-pong game with Democrats going (many right-wing House members won’t vote for any stopgap spending bill, and others are demanding big domestic spending cuts that don’t pass the smell test). So Johnson is back to square one, as the New York Times reports:
“Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday abruptly canceled a vote on his initial plan to avert a government shutdown, as opposition to the six-month stopgap funding measure piled up in both parties.
“It was a bruising setback for Mr. Johnson coming only a few weeks before a Sept. 30 deadline Congress faces to fund the government or face a shutdown.”
So now what? In the intense heat of an election year in which both the House and the White House are poised between the two parties, the leader of the GOP ticket has ordered Johnson to hold his breath until he turns blue — or more to the point, until the government is shut down — unless something happens that is as likely as Johnson suddenly coming out for abortion rights. Indeed, far from ramming the deeply offensive and impractical SAVE Act down the throats of Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, he can’t even get the stopgap spending measure that includes it out of his own chamber. In the past, Democrats have loaned him a few votes to help him out of a jam, but they won’t do it unless he drops the SAVE Act. And if he drops the SAVE Act, Trump’s friends in the House will happily drop him the first chance they get (maybe right away, or maybe after the election). On the other hand, if he obeys Trump and refuses to move any spending bill, there’s a good chance a few Republicans will defect and back a Democratic measure to avoid an unusually pointless and politically damaging government shutdown. That, too, would expose Johnson as feckless and disposable.
Ever since Johnson succeeded Kevin McCarthy, Washington observers have alternated between treating him as some sort of backwoods parliamentary genius who fools people with his apparent befuddlement and as a Mr. Magoo who stumbles forward blindly and survives by luck and the fact that House Republicans have no better prospects for wielding the gavel. We’ll soon see which Mike Johnson emerges from the current morass. Another major incident of GOP fecklessness and disarray could help Democrats flip the House, but it’s a shame people may not be able to do their jobs in the interim.
What about emphasizing how our military presence in Iraq has hurt us at home and in the long run? Commercials with those generals from the convention. Barry McCafferty.
Remind people that when Katrina hit, the Louisiana National Buard was in Iraq [get the numbers].
It is hard for me to see how Democratic office-seekers I support are supposed to signal “responsible change” by capitulating to and collaborating with the very authors of catastrophe in the other and our own party. That is especially true when it comes to what people know to be and actually experience as zero-sum matters, not as “win-win” pabulum from policy peddlers or “hold harmless” protectionism from a plainly ineffectual Congress.
Those zero-sum matters include a defense budget, which is mostly pork and obsolescence.
They certainly include the constant compounding of losses piled up by improvident lenders with a huge lobby and keys to the Treasury. CRIME PAYS VERY WELL INDEED!
They surely include Congressional perks, which are doled out in Congress on the basis of (a) rain-making, (b) seniority, and (c) interest-group connections in that order, with nothing but obloquy for either original or actually courageous members.
So, if everybody and everything in Washington is going to be “win-win” or, at least, “hold harmless”, how do Democratic leaders, actual or would-be, signal any “responsible change” at all?
What are the “tells” we, as petit jurors that our lawyer-legislators pander to, can look for?
Most voters do not live in the juvenile fantasy world of military costumes and chicken-hawk posturing of the Thatcherites, Darbyites, and Trotskyites in the White House. But, they do not have any respect either for the hand-wringing pity party that “supports the troops” with the self-serving military budget “priorities” and endless tribute for foreign creditors and blackmailers our foreign lenders and borrowers alike hire as lobbyists.
We have universal video-game playing now, not universal military training or even a well regulated militia. Still, most voters do live in a savage world of economic zero- and negative-sum games or, in some cases, a childish world of whining for comfort food and recognition. In any case, few of us walk away fabulously wealthy from “public-private partnerships” we just looted or act as the lawyer, lobbyist, or apologist for.
We out here have no Congressional benefits, pensions, and entourages. So, we wonder about and resent cowardly politicians whose only concept of risk is truth-telling, sexual exploit, or failure to comply with the rules of legal graft.
I really like GQR’s work. It’s refreshingly fact-based, dispassionate and insightful. Excellent recommendations for policy and communication. My only comment on this particular report is that whatever national security posture the Democrats take, it must be authentic, organic and fit into a overall Democratic “brand.” As good as these recommendations are, they can’t just be talking points. (I love the irony of a recommendation based on a poll that reveals Democrats are disliked for using polls…).
To me it’s simple; David Plouffe should focus his campaign strategy around these talking points.
-John McCain still has the cold war mentality. We need a leader who is open to new approaches and innovative strategies….Strategies that will make our Country safer, better our relationships with foreign allies and ultimately, restore our reputation throughout the World. BARACK OBAMA IS THAT LEADER.
-The modern World needs a unifier and not a divider and war monger like McCain. Obama will sit down with friends and enemies while McCain will take the Bush-Cheney approach; have “talks” with no one, alienate your allies and conduct foreign policy in a reckless and arrogant way. The mess we are now experiencing is a result of the Bush-Cheney policies that McCain WANTS TO CONTINUE.
-Finally and MOST IMPORTANTLY; Obama was a Freshman Senator who had the courage to stand up to the President, Republicans and even many of his own colleagues and OPPOSE the War in Iraq. In 2002, Obama said we should focus ALL OF OUR EFFORTS on capturing Bin Laden and finishing the war with al-qaida. This type of foresight
should signify to all his readiness to be our President.