The White House campaign to secure votes from wavering House GOP members includes promising conservatives that Trump can impound funds after Congress approves them.
What the fuck? I don’t even know where to begin here. Wouldn’t this mean that budgets no longer matter? Does it just mean that openly lying to the American people (Yes, I know, politics and all that. You know what I mean) is now an open and accepted norm to get your agenda through? Doesn’t this essentially mean that Congress’s “power of the purse” has been ceded to the Executive branch?
Democrats in Congress are in a tough spot.
No they are not. The GOP has control of literally every branch of government. Let them pass these bills without a single Democrat vote. If the GOP can’t get their own party behind their own bills, that’s their fault. Not Democrats.
But of course, we all know that the GOP literally believes Democrats exist for the sole purpose of saving them from themselves. They’ve openly stated this. And for some reason, Democrats continue to play the GOP’s game by their rules.
First, Democrats want a written guarantee within the appropriations bill that the president will commit to spending the funds precisely as Congress legislates.
There is exactly zero chance that Trump would ever honor such a guarantee. He’s currently in a trade war with Canada over a trade deal that he himself wrote and negotiated. The man considers stiffing contractors and forcing them to accept less pay for work already completed is a legitimate business tactic. He has long since proven his worth literally isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Trump would use that as toilet paper before the ink from his sharpie even dried.
Second, Democrats are loath to cause a government shutdown. They identify as the party committed to making government work.
Have they been paying attention for the past 2 months? This is what they consider government "working’? All things considered, a government shutdown would probably be less damaging at this point. Anything they’re trying to keep open Trump would probably shut down anyway.
Senate Democrats face a choice. Hold out for a better funding bill at the cost of being blamed (at least in the short run) for shutting down the government?
Yes. They’re blaming Democrats for everything anyway. What’s the difference? The defense is very simple: “Trump has already caused immeasurable amounts of damage to the federal government and the services they provide, and have laid off tens of thousands of workers. We cannot in good conscience cast votes to pass a bill that not only gives validation to these tactics but will speed up the process.” The general public, on both sides of the aisle, is already against Musk and DOGE. This isn’t a hard argument to make.
Third, Democrats fear Trump could weaponize a government shutdown. He could ignore rules that designate certain federal workers as “essential personnel,” such as the public health and safety officials required to work without pay during a shutdown. Instead, Trump (or Elon Musk or Russell Vought) could decide who counts as “essential.” What’s more, the Trump administration could fire scores of additional federal workers under the fiction that if their jobs are not deemed “essential,” they are targets for letting go.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE’S DOING NOW FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK
What’s he going to do with workers he’s already planning on firing anyway? Fire them harder?
It’s not clear this Senate minority is sufficiently united nor willing to shoulder that risk by voting down the spending plan.
Because Chuck Schumer is a fucking coward. He literally said that Jeffries needs to play nice with New York Republicans because there’s nothing he can do in the Senate. The man is literally rolling over and playing dead, and advising Jeffries to do the same thing. These two fucking cucks make Merrick Garland look like he should have been given a Presidential Award for Bravery by comparison.
Neither one of them should be offering up a single Democrat vote for anything without first (a) dissolving DOGE, (b) reversing all of DOGE’s actions, and © enacting this shit before they get a single Dem vote on anything.
Let the GOP pass a bill reversing and eliminating DOGE, and then passing it through Trump’s inevitable veto. Then actually make Trump get rid of Musk and shut that whole thing down. THEN negotiations can begin. But if they’re not willing to do that, let them pass their bills without Democrat support for even the most basic procedural votes. There is zero reason for Democrats to take the GOP’s word on anything, especially when Trump’s plan to get it through is to just lie to people until they get the votes and then just renege on the deal later.
Great post! Republicans have full control of Congress, the White House and the courts. This is what they wanted, now they should be able to run it with no help of VOTES from the Democrats.
I was so pissed when 10 Democrats actually voted for Greene’s censure. Every one of those Dems should be harshly punished by the Dem leadership. When Greene was tossed out, the rest of those Dems should have started acting up again as soon as HitlerPig started speaking again. They should have done it again and again and again until there wasn’t a Dem left in the chamber. The next day, NOBODY would have been talking about HitlerPig’s speech, they would have been talking about the massive Democratic protest. It would have energized the Dem base. Instead, they cowered, and then voted to punish the only guy who stood up for America.
It’s almost like they’d vote to make opposition parties illegal in an effort to avoid being called obstructionists. They’ll get theirs. They always do.
“Here’s why Democrats are especially reluctant to let that happen.”
Because established Dem leadership are all feckless, spineless, ball-less, weak-as-water pansies with no political will for this or any other fight.
They will sit back and witness the complete demise of US democracy rather than upset their precious rules of decorum.
🤦♀️ 🤡 🖕 🖕
I take issue with your statement. Water is not weak. Water shapes the mountains, can cut steel, and gave rise to life as we know it. Dem leadership has none of those qualities. They are more like old warm pudding on a sidewalk.
I take your point…
While assuming you recognize the phrase “weak-as-water” is taken to mean as opposed to alcoholic beverages, yes?
🤷♂️
The White House campaign to secure votes from wavering House GOP members includes promising conservatives that Trump can impound funds after Congress approves them.
Then there is no reason for the Democrats to vote for a budget that the President has already committed to ignoring. A shut down is the only option available to them.
Democrats are loath to cause a government shutdown.
Too fucking bad.
I think causing a shut down would be good for democratic morale. Trump and his sycophants are going to cut all the funding anyways, may as well use it as a rallying cry.
This week we will see the acceptance of the term DINO. Democrats in name only. DINOs are going to work with MAGA to make sure MAGA gets whatever it wants.
We call them Vichy Democrats
“Quisling” works too and it has a nice sound to it.
I think this is one of the few times I can say, a government shutdown may be less damaging to the American people than keeping it open for whatever this shit is they are currently calling governance…
There is no functional Democratic Party. It’s the appeasement wing of the GOP
Short answer - Yes.
Republicans account for 13 government shutdowns, 8 all in Reagan’s terms. 1 under H.W Bush. 2 under Bill Clinton (when Republicans had both Senate/House with a Democratic president). 1 with Obama (with a bipartisan House/Senate split). 3 under Commander Dipshit and a looming one like this one.
So, a large majority of these shutdowns are of course caused by Republicans.
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