Tag: government shutdown

Categories
national politics & policies porkbarrel politics

The Biggest Gift of All

Donald Trump, debt, funding, Santa, Congress, government shutdown

We received an early Christmas present from the incoming Trump administration.

The gift? The torpedoing of a continuing resolution (CR) supported by House Speaker Johnson that was full of concessions to the Democrat side of the aisle. Aside from the drunken-​sailor spending, the 1,500-plus-page legislation — just something to tide the government over for a few months — contained many other horrific elements that made it worthy of deletion.

Trump, Vance, and Musk are among those who volubly criticized the pork and other bad provisions of the CR.

Senator Rand Paul said: “I had hoped to see @SpeakerJohnson grow a spine, but this bill full of pork shows he is a weak, weak man. The debt will continue to grow. Ultimately the dollar will fail. Democrats are clueless and Big Gov Republicans are complicit.”

Ostensibly designed to continue funding the federal government after the money had run out, the bill’s poisonous elements included a pay increase for members of Congress and a provision to make it almost impossible for the Trump Justice Department to investigate wrongdoing in the House (such as the evidence-​destroying way the J6 investigation was conducted).

Another provision would have extended the life of a State Department’s Global Engagement Center, a censorship office that Republicans have been trying to kill for years. Some Republicans, that is. The ones in favor of freedom of speech. The GEC funds efforts to suppress speech.

But the worst of it was stopped. The CR monstrosity became a much more manageable, much smaller CR; “the government was saved” — and, more importantly, we were saved some of the awful things packed into the earlier resolution.

Still, a lot of people (mainly Democrats) didn’t like their Christmas gift.

And dashed were the holiday dreams of members of Congress, stuck another term at current levels of remuneration.

Ho ho ho.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Flux and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
Common Sense general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies too much government

Debbie Does Democracy

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, collage, photomontage, Paul Jacob, James Gill, illustration

“Republicans in Congress are dead-​set on rolling back the progress that Democrats like you and I [sic] have worked so hard to achieve,” wrote Democratic Party Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in a bizarre pitch letter last week.

They’ve already said that they’re going to try to repeal Obamacare, after more than 50 unsuccessful attempts (and two Supreme Court rulings in the law’s favor). They want to completely defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides necessary health services to women across the country. And if they don’t get their way, they’re just fine with shutting down the government — again!

Well, GOP strategists shouldn’t be fine with the brinksmanship of a government shutdown. That ploy has backfired before. But why? Because everyone seems to think that the Democrats’ “blame Republicans” strategy makes sense.

But it doesn’t.

Say the Republicans in Congress want to defund Planned Parenthood. Democrats want to keep funding it, but … the whole federal government spends over revenue — by nearly half a trillion this past year.

So if Republicans fight the spending and Democrats defend it and the government shuts down because of lack of agreement, it’s obvious: both parties shut down the government. Both refuse to compromise.

But for some reason, it’s only those who want to cut spending who get tarred with responsibility for the lack of a budget.

Debbie titled her email letter “This pisses me off.” But those who deserve to be so irked are her opponents, the Republicans, discriminated against in the double standard she perpetuates.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, collage, photomontage, Paul Jacob, James Gill, illustration

 

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

The Mysterious Barricades

One might wonder: Do we really need the government we don’t notice when it is gone?

Which perhaps explains why national monuments have been cordoned off during the federal government budget stalemate: Not merely shut down and left unswept and poorly lit, but barricaded. With guards.

Is there any practical reason to shut down outdoor monuments like the Jefferson Memorial? Or the Lincoln? Doesn’t it cost more to truck in barricades, print “closed” signs and post guards? Seems the executive branch is expressing a “stick it to the citizenry” message, a strategy of maximizing public pain.

Childish. Apparently those at the helm think our government is theirs to roll up and take away.

But try to send that message to aged war veterans, determined to pay their respects at the World War II War Memorial, according to the Washington Post:

The graying and stooped men, wearing blue baseball caps, red T‑shirts and garlands of red, white and blue flowers, surged forward, accompanied by members of Congress — the same lawmakers who, hours earlier, had triggered a government shutdown by failing to pass a budget resolution.

A shout went up. The barricades had been moved — it was unclear by whom.

Was it a congressman? A park policeman humanely modifying his orders? A vet? No credit was taken … The old men rolled and marched and hobbled forward, enthusiastic. One of the congressmen present declared it “the best civil disobedience we’ve seen in Washington for a long time.”

Common sense triumphs over the monstrous stupidity of official Washington.

Glad to be on the side of Common Sense, I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

A Fearsome, Fiery Cliché

Senator Chuck Schumer insists that it would be the height of irresponsibility either to freeze the federal government’s debt ceiling or “shut down the government.” Either action would risk “the credit markets losing some confidence in the United States Treasury” — tantamount to “Playing with fire.”

The opposite of his point appears closer to the truth.  Michael Tanner explains that “If the debt ceiling is not increased, the Treasury can prioritize interest and debt payment to avoid a default and essentially put the government on a stringent pay-​as-​you-​go basis.” Economist Robert Murphy adds that “even if the debt ceiling weren’t increased, the Treasury could still roll over its debt as existing bonds matured. The only thing the Treasury couldn’t do would be to issue more debt.”

The truth behind Schumer’s clichéd metaphor is this: He and his cronies have been “playing with fire” for a long time. And it’s worth noting that forcing the Treasury to switch to pay-​as-​you-​go would likely have the opposite effect on credit markets than he contends: When prodigal spenders cut up their credit cards and continue to pay existing bills, creditors tend to breathe a little easier.

But expect no such acumen from Schumer, who, in that same exhortation, lists the “three branches of government”: The House, the Senate, and the president. Apparently, he hopes to gain authority for his contentions by piling factual error upon cliché.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

The Upcoming Game of Chicken

In Europe, populist response to government policy looks a lot different than in America. The French are rioting in the streets … because President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed to raise the retirement age by a mere two years. But, as The Economist notes, America’s Tea Partiers “are the opposite: they exhale fiscal probity through every pore.” The French, on the other hand, “appear to believe that public money is printed in heaven and will rain down for ever like manna.”

This appraisal, “The good, the bad, and the tea parties,” recognizes that the Tea Party is not violent, doesn’t even litter much. In sum, the Tea Party is “[n]ot French, not fabricated and not as flaky as their detractors aver: these are the positives. Another one: in how many other countries would a powerful populist movement demand less of government, rather than endlessly and expensively more?”

Interestingly, The Economist pushes the practical point, arguing that if Tea Party “Republicans capture the House, they need to move past ideology into the realm of practical policy.”

This echoes what I argued this weekend on Townhall: “[I]f Republicans in Congress are serious about restoring fiscal sanity to Washington, they will hold all the cards necessary to do so. The Obama Administration simply cannot spend money the U.S. House refuses to raise or appropriate.”

This will lead to a game of chicken with the Obama administration, threats of a government shutdown.

So, who will blink first?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.