Tag Archives: government shutdown

This Made Me Feel Better

When I saw that eight “rogue” Democrats had bowed to Republican demands to end the government shutdown without a firm agreement to restore the ACA subsidies, I was depressed. And angry. I also was clearly not alone–the pundits I follow were almost uniformly furious.

But then I read Jonathan Last’s analysis in the Bulwark, and felt much better.

Last argues that the very best outcome for Democrats would have been to force Republicans to give them something that would alter the structural balance of power– something like D.C. statehood or the full release of the Epstein files. The next best, he says, would have been getting rid of the filibuster, which would have required Republicans to vote on every unpopular Trump proposal and cleared the way for Democrats to enact sweeping reforms if and when they regain power. The third best outcome would have been to win a tactical concession–perhaps outlawing masks on ICE agents.

Instead, Democrats got the fourth best outcome: Democrats caved without any concessions–while raising the salience of a terrible issue for Republicans.

This is basically what happened. Republicans will allow an ACA subsidy vote in the future, that is meaningless because the House will not pass the bill—and even if it somehow passed, Trump wouldn’t sign it.

But capitulating without getting anything of substance isn’t the worst thing in the world. It preserves the status quo and the status quo is—as last week’s elections showed—good for Democrats.

Trump has plummeted in the polls as the shutdown has dragged on. But what would happen if the Democrats had gotten what they were holding out for–extension of the ACA subsidies and restoration of the Medicaid cuts. Slashing those subsidies and drastically cutting Medicaid were mean-spirited provisions that were central to Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Last’s point is that such a “success” would have been a disaster for the Democrats, because it would have made Trump more popular.

The Democratic proposal was for Trump and Republicans to undo the most unpopular parts of their Big Beautiful Bill.

Had they succeeded, I am fairly certain that 2026 voters would not have given Democratic candidates credit for protecting them.

Why? Our COVID experience suggests that Americans have almost no capacity to grant credit for harms avoided.

Last reminds us that Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill created a political liability for him, because in order to keep GOP legislators onboard, he couldn’t enormously increase the deficit. He needed to include some cost-savings. In GOP land, the most politically palatable cuts are to other people’s health care.

The devil’s bargain Trump made with the BBB was that health insurance costs would rise dramatically for people covered by the ACA and health care access in rural areas would decrease as Medicaid was cut. These effects would be tangible for voters and would manifest months before the midterm elections….

The shutdown presented Trump with the opportunity to have his cake and eat it, too. Having given the holdout Republicans their health care cuts to pass the BBB, he could have undone those cuts as a “concession” to Democrats, thus nullifying their best issue for the 2026 campaign. Democrats would have had to sell voters on the idea that “Your healthcare costs would have gone up without us!”

Good luck with that.

It’s hard to argue with that analysis.

Democrats were doing what Democrats do–trying to avoid harm to the millions of Americans who will lose healthcare–or pay much, much more for it– thanks to Trump and his GOP sycophants. Would those Americans be grateful to the Democrats who saved them from those harms? Some undoubtedly would be–but, as Last contends, most wouldn’t. If the Democrats had won–if they’d forced GOP concessions on ACA subsidies and Medicaid, voters next November wouldn’t be experiencing a world of hurt, and Trump’s GOP would be the beneficiary of its absence.

Why didn’t Trump take this gigantic win? Because it would have meant laying down. He would have had to pretend that he’d been beaten and was capitulating to Chuck Schumer.

Trump’s obsession with strength and dominance simply would not permit that.

So where are we? Last says that– objectively speaking–Democrats emerge from the shutdown in a slightly better position than they entered it. They’ve damaged Trump politically. They’ve insured that health care costs will be a major issue in 2026.
The meaningless future vote on extending the ACA subsidies “will put Republican senators on the spot and create vulnerability for House Republicans when they refuse to take up the bill.”

I feel better. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans won’t…

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The Shutdown

One of my favorite economists, Paul Krugman, has abandoned his New York Times column after 20 plus years. He has, however, continued his daily subscriber letter, which I receive, and in a recent one, he addressed the  embarrassing pre-Christmas clown show that threatened to shut down the government. He titled the essay–quite appropriately–“The Chaos Monkeys Have Already Taken Over the Zoo.” 

In an earlier Times piece, written before passage of the last-ditch, last-minute deal to keep government over, Krugman had written

Speaker Mike Johnson (soon to be ex-speaker?) is scrambling to put a budget deal together to avoid a government shutdown tomorrow. What a Holiday Gift from President Musk and First Laddy Trump. More at The NY Times here.

They couldn’t even wait till January to unleash the chaos. Classic hubris — too bad the country and the world are within the blast radius.

One more thing. Assuming Johnson is unable to remain Speaker in the next Congress, the days and weeks it might take the GOP to select a new ‘leader’ might take them past the deadline to certify the election.

(I hadn’t considered that possibility, and quite probably, neither did the congressional monkeys, aka “the usual suspects.” An inability to certify Trump’s election, brought on by the most MAGA members of the House, would have been..interesting…)

Krugman was far from the only observer who pointed out that the reasons “President Musk” gave for torpedoing the initial bipartisan measure were mostly bogus. His enumeration of the items in the measure he found unacceptable included a number that weren’t actually included in the measure. (I’m sure everyone reading this is shocked by the revelation that Musk is happy to depart from the truth when it serves his purposes…) A number of reports have zeroed in on what was apparently the real reason he wanted to kill the measure.

As the Hill explained,

In a Friday letter to congressional leaders, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) claimed Musk derailed the deal that would have avoided a government shutdown “in order to protect his wallet and the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of American workers, innovators and businesses.”

The spending agreement released Tuesday included a bipartisan provision to limit and screen U.S. investments in China, among dozens of other proposals attached to the 1,500-page bill.

As the CEO and largest stockholder in Tesla, Musk has extensive business connections to China. The company operates a major manufacturing plant in Shanghai and has sought to build deeper connections with Chinese companies.

Interestingly, although the final bill did not include Trump’s demand to scrap the debt ceiling, it did omit the provision that would have curtailed Musk’s business with China. Musk evidently had more clout with lawmakers than Trump–quite possibly because he has ample resources to fund his threat to primary any legislators who failed to knuckle under.

What is most stunning about this particular “Chaos monkeys” episode is that the entire fiasco was triggered by a man with no official government authority–a man who has never submitted himself to the electorate, who has never received a single vote– yet clearly considers himself a co-President, and just as clearly, intends to use the considerable power of his purse to protect his personal financial interests, if need be, at the expense of the American public’s interests.

Musk is by far the richest of Trump’s proposed governing cabal, but he’s not the only billionaire, nor is he the only one who will bring multiple conflicts of interest to a designated role. The grifter-in-chief proposes to surround himself with other rich men (almost all of his designees are White “Christian” males) who are equally ignorant of government operations and constitutional constraints. They are clearly unconcerned about what policies might be in the national interest. Their first impulses will be to protect their own sources of wealth (or, in the case of RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, to impose their loony-tunes worldviews on the country.)

The dictionary defines Kakistocracy as “government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state,” and Corporatism as economic control by powerful corporate interests.

I think we’re there.

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Random Thoughts/Observations On Government Shutdown

Partisans are playing the blame game–pointing fingers and accusing the “other guy” of being responsible for the government’s inability to function.

It seems fairly obvious to me that those in charge–those in power– are most culpable; with the GOP dominating all three branches of Government, trying to lay the blame at the doorstep of the emasculated Dems reminds me of the divorce lawyer who told the judge that her client’s wife was so annoying, she caused  him to beat her. (That’s a true story, by the way.)

A few scattered observations–

  • it is absolutely unconscionable to use children as bargaining chips and hostages. Republicans’ willingness to keep the “Dreamers” in limbo and hold out funding for children’s health in order to play political games is simply despicable. (It’s also stupid: 87% of Americans want DACA reinstated.)
  • Republicans (and a few Democrats) who were willing to ignore the ongoing anguish of 800,000 DACA children in order to fund government for another couple of weeks were either naive (GOP promises to “get to” DACA “soon” were transparent bullshit–especially since Trump’s uninformed demands change daily) or more concerned about perceived political optics than justice for children who depend upon them.
  • Indiana Senator Donnelly was one of those Democrats. Donnelly has been a constant disappointment: he was willing to defund Planned Parenthood (he evidently believes his religious beliefs deserve government support but mine don’t), and he was willing to screw over the Dreamers, presumably because he is (theoretically) a Democrat running for re-election in a red state. Perhaps I’m the one being naive, but I think voters–red or blue–are more likely to reward principled behavior than political pandering. That said, I will vote for Donnelly in November because–acute disappointment though he is–he will cast his first vote to eject Mitch McConnell (aka the most evil man in America) from leadership, and because the Republican Trumpers who want to oppose him are even worse–and in Indiana, a vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for the Republican. This will be a “lesser of two evils” choice.
  • If there is a bright spot to the shutdown, it should mean that–at least while government isn’t open for business–the demolition crew that Trump has installed in lieu of competent administrators won’t be able to work on destroying their agencies.

And finally….If we needed any more evidence that the federal government is broken, and that Republicans are disinterested in fixing it, or for that matter, doing anything other than enrich their donors, I think this last year–culminating in this Keystone Kos episode–should provide it.

I know it’s morning, but excuse me while I go pour myself a stiff drink.

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Tea Party Priorities

Evidently, the theatrics–make that “tea” actrics–will not end anytime soon.

You may remember that, in 2011, when he was still in Congress, Mike Pence was an enthusiastic leader of that year’s “defund Planned Parenthood or shut government down” effort. It’s 2015, but in the crazy caucus, only the faces have changed. Last week, Indiana Congressmen Young and Stutzman were among those voting to shut down government.

Despite last week’s passage of a short-term “clean” funding measure to keep government open until December, the zealots are still intent upon shutting down government unless Planned Parenthood is defunded, and a not-insignificant number of them say they’ll refuse to raise the debt ceiling when the time comes. (That, of course, would cause a massive default by the U.S. on its obligations, including such obligations as military pay, social security and medicare.)

Given so many Republicans’ willingness to do it again, you’d think the last shutdown (in 2013, over Obamacare) had been a rousing success for the would-be extortionists. It wasn’t–at least, not in what the rest of us call the “real world.”

Indeed, as the zealots prepare to play yet another game of chicken, twenty thousand federal workers are still suing over the last government shutdown, and a recent report by the Congressional Research Service calculated the economic damage done by that fit of pique:

Federal employees worked 6.6 million fewer hours during the 16-day government shutdown in October 2013, according to a recent report, with the loss of productivity resulting in a 0.3 percent loss in economic growth.

In other words, sending more than 850,000 federal employees home without pay for at least part of the shutdown took billions of dollars out of the economy.

Although the ideologues refuse to believe it, most government employees work at jobs that actually need to be done. When those jobs don’t get done, the economy slows, hurting everyone.

None of that matters to the zealots. In order to “defund” Planned Parenthood–that is, in order to keep Medicaid from reimbursing the organization for medical services provided to poor women and men (STD tests, breast cancer screenings, birth control pills, etc.), they’re willing to make poor people poorer. And sicker.

Tea Party “patriots” are willing to ignore the reality that there are no other providers with the capacity and reach to substitute for Planned Parenthood, and that defunding the organization would cut off medical care to millions of Americans.

Poll after poll confirms that most Americans support Planned Parenthood, value its services and don’t want to see it defunded. They also don’t want another government shutdown.

Americans would really like to see a Congress that governs rather than postures, but apparently, that’s too much to ask.

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If We REALLY Ran Government Like a Business….

I get so annoyed when people say that government should be “run like a business.” Government isn’t a business; the statement betrays a total lack of understanding of what government is and does.

Government should, however, be run in a businesslike fashion–and a Congressman from Minnesota has made a proposal borrowed from the world of business that I absolutely agree should be applied to government as well. According to the Political Animal blog, 

Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) introduced a bill Friday that would prevent members of Congress from getting paid in the event of a government shutdown.

“It’s time to put an end to government by crisis management,” Nolan said in a statement. “And it’s time for Congress to start living in the real world — where you either do your job — or you don’t get paid. If hundreds of thousands of other federal employees are to go without their salaries — twisting slowly in the wind in a government shutdown — then the Congress should not be paid either.”

Under Nolan’s bill, members of Congress would go unpaid for the duration of the shutdown. He introduced similar legislation during the 16-day government shutdown in 2013 that left 800,000 federal workers furloughed without pay. While his bill never got off the ground, Nolan donated the money he was paid over the shutdown to charities in his district.

As anyone who follows the news is aware, the Crazy Caucus–led by Senator Ted Cruz–is threatening to shut down the government once again if they don’t get their way; this time, “getting their way” means defunding Planned Parenthood and denying basic medical care to millions of poor women (and poor men, who rely on Planned Parenthood for STD testing, among other things).

When union workers strike, they don’t get paid by their employers. Why should We The People–who employ these bozos–continue to pay them while they are refusing to do their jobs?

It’s bad enough that they work a three or four day week for wages hard-working Americans can only dream of. As the blogger, David Atkins, concludes:

If Republicans want to run government like a business, this would be a good way to start. If you don’t do the work you’re supposed to do you don’t get paid.

Makes perfect sense to me.

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