Assuming that there isn’t significant filibuster reform, it seems to me like it’s inevitable that there will be some kind of government shutdown.
The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said on Sunday that his party will vigorously oppose the spending initiatives President Obama plans to include in his State of the Union address on Tuesday because “it’s not a time to be looking at pumping up government spending.”
The Republicans have 47 senators, and it only takes 41 senators to block spending bills. It’s true that the Dems could use the budget reconciliation process to pass a budget with only 50 votes (plus the vice-president), but that’s not true of the actual appropriations bills. So, if the Republicans are going to “vigorously oppose” the president’s “spending initiatives,” that means that they are going to refuse to pass most, if not all, of bills needed to keep the government open and functioning.
I watched a little bit of the Chris Matthews Show this morning and the panelists all seemed to agree that there was more potential for compromise than seemed possible after election night. That might be true for some things, like passing a free trade agreement with South Korea, or, possibly, doing some significant tax reform. But it doesn’t seem to be true on the most critical issue, which is funding government operations.
At some point, one side or the other is going to have to back down. I don’t see either side backing down preemptively. Ergo, I predict that the government will be shut down in November or December. Now I just have to figure out which stocks to short.
Ergo, I predict that the government will be shut down in November or December.
Isn’t the Gov’t only funded through the middle of March?
You’re right. I listened to McConnell today and found out that my fellow American people apparently decided that more than anything else on the planet they want the Republicans to get spending under control. Silly me. Here I thought they were more worried about jobs and feeding their kids and finding affordable health care. Boy, am I an idiot, huh? He shrugged off a reference to Gingrich’s disastrous decision to go to the mat and shut down the government under Clinton. It’s like they have no memory. They’re approaching delusional.
Spending on people they don’t know, who probably don’t look like them, or sound like them, who don’t live near them, or worship where and how they do, yes.
Spending on them, yes.
Because John Donne was wrong and every man is an island.
For ‘yes’, read ‘no’ in ¶2
Maybe I’ve missed something, but what spending is Obama pumping up in his State of the Union address?
Or is this just a matter of pre-emptive lying to establish the meme before the speech.
Are the Democrats going to go to the mattresses to win the rhetorical war which will determine whose fault it is?
No, they are not. President Quitter will not get his cowardly butt off the “bipartisanshit” dime.
So, we are going to lose this one, and that will put Obama back on the losing side of public opinion, and put a kibosh on the current upward trend of public opinion.
If you aren’t on the offense, you are losing.
If someone forced me to make a prediction, I’d predict that the government will be shutdown. Obama will premptively offer to only shutdown Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The GOP will refuse to compromise and the Obama-led Dems will get blamed by the voters for the entire mess. As a last ditch effort to get the government running again, Obama will adopt Paul Ryan’s Roadmap to Destruction and rebrand it. The R’s will reluctantly allow themselves to be persuaded to pass it.