GOP Government Shutdown Watch: November 2023 Edition

 

When something happens once, it may be an anomaly. When something happens five times under the exact same circumstances, that's not an anomaly, that's a pattern. When something happens five times under the exact same circumstances and is about to happen again, that's not only a pattern, that's an intentional act. 

From NBC News: 

House Republicans on Saturday unveiled their stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown set to begin next weekend. But with just five legislative days left until the deadline, Congress has little room for error.

Just two and a half weeks into the job, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., opted to go with a two-step continuing resolution, or CR, over a more typical funding extension covering the entire federal government. The untested funding approach is aimed at appeasing far-right agitators in his GOP conference who despise CRs.

The House is expected to vote as early as Tuesday to give members 72 hours to read the text of the bill, according to two people familiar with matter. The plan does not include budget cuts or aid for Israel.

Under the two-step strategy — which Johnson and others have dubbed a “laddered CR” but which others have likened to a step stool — several spending bills needed to keep the government open would be extended until Jan. 19, while the remaining bills would go on a CR until Feb. 2.

GOP hardliners had been pushing Johnson to include budget cuts as part of his two-tiered CR plan, a source involved in discussions told NBC News. One House Republican, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, quickly voiced his opposition to the bill shortly after it was released.

“It’s a 100% clean. And I 100% oppose,” Roy tweeted. “My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated. Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days — for future “promises.”

The plan is designed to avoid a messy showdown right before the holidays and buy Johnson and House Republicans more time to pass individual spending bills, but also create a sense of urgency with staggered funding cliffs. But it remains to be seen if the plan can pass the House, much less the Democratic-controlled Senate, which has dismissed the two-tiered approach.

Republicans. Cannot. Govern.

The party of perpetual grievances simply cannot get its act together. At this point, it's more than simple incompetence; it's intentional. We have one of our two major political parties that does not believe in government and is willing to have its own members shut down that very same government for the *sixth* time in the last 30 years. That's the whole shtick of what would become the Tea Party movement: we hate government but elect us and we'll vote against everything. A decade later that mantra still echoes throughout the United States Congress on the Republican side. These folks are political arsonists, willing to set the whole thing on fire and then gleefully blame Joe Biden when Democrats don't swoop in and save the day fast enough. With a complicit media playing both sides, struggles like this current showdown have become all too common and have played into voters' stereotypes that Washington doesn't care about the Average Joe or Jane on the street. While it's obvious to those who pay attention that Democrats are the adults in the room, Republicans are more than happy to take our country to the edge of financial ruin simply because they can.

Time and time again Republicans show us who they are. Playing hot potato with the nation's economy is something they've embraced as a key strategy over the past decade. First with Obama and now with Joe Biden, we've seen the country's credit rating downgraded due to Republican sabotage. In fact, it was Fitch, a leading credit agency, that stated that it was "an erosion of governance" that led to their recent August downgrade, and they specifically mentioned both the current polarization as well as the actions and events of January 6 in their report. Fitch actually said, "The repeated debt limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management." These downgrades were part of a larger Republican plan to damage the economy so that the Democratic president in charge would suffer the fallout. They continually set these fires and hope that the American people blame the firemen and not the arsonists. 

Fortunately, this strategy has not panned out thus far. After the 2011 credit downgrade, Barack Obama was able to win re-election in 2012. Just under two months after Fitch's credit downgrade, it was the Democrats' united front and unfavorable polling for the GOP positions that forced House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to make an 11th-hour deal back in September to avoid a shutdown, a deal so perilous for Speaker McCarthy that it ultimately cost him his leadership position. Just over a month later, Democrats swept to resounding wins in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Kentucky showing once again that voters are tired of Republicans' childish antics. For all the blubbering bluster that Republicans like to make about Democrats and the economy, what's actually concerning to voters is the stripping away and rights and bodily autonomy for women throughout the country. Voters are exponentially more concerned about that than a downgraded national credit rating from a credit agency. 

But Republicans can't help themselves. This is who they are. Everything is a projection. Joe Biden's policies have been top-notch. The unemployment level is at a historic low. Unions are winning critical victories from autoworkers at the Big Three auto companies to Hollywood writers and actors. There is no recession in sight, much to the dismay of the entire Republican Party. The last thing the GOP needs is an unforced shutdown right before the holiday season. Do they really want to shut down the country the week before Thanksgiving? Do they want to disrupt holiday travel for tens of millions of Americans? Is this how the "united" House GOP really wants to announce itself to the American people?

Hopefully not, but with this lot we can never be sure. What we can be sure of is that Democrats are and continue to be the adults in the room. Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the rest of the Democrats in leadership have earned our trust. They've played chicken with this current iteration of House GOP leadership and have forced them to blink time and time again. Mike Johnson is no different. He may play himself off as a man of superior intellect but deep down he knows he's on a short leash. He knows he is one Matt Gaetz-initiated vote away from being sent back to relative obscurity. Johnson needs a win and for that to happen he needs Democrats onboard. They know this and they know they once again have a winning hand. For the second time in under two months, it will be the Democratic Party that will continue to ensure that we as a country pay our bills as we promised to do. 

Because that is what responsible governance looks like. 

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