How to end it [behind a paywall, though usually you can read by Googling the headline):
The GOP almost always bears the blame for a shutdown, because the smaller-government message of Republicans is easily portrayed as aiming to deprive the public of government services. President Clinton faced off against House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995, and Mr. Clinton won. President Obama dueled with the Republican House in 2013 and Mr. Obama won.
The advantages to the political party that favors higher spending—i.e., the Democrats—reflect the existing legal regime. But the next Congress can change the law (the most relevant one being the Antideficiency Act) so that the public suffers less inconvenience when the political parties cannot agree on spending levels. In case of a government shutdown, the government would continue to spend on discretionary programs at a level close to the amount authorized by the previous year’s budget. A reasonable default target might be 95%.
Such a law could be a political game-changer. The public would be less likely to suffer serious inconvenience with spending at this default target, and a 5% solution would strengthen the leverage of the party favoring less spending, i.e., the GOP. A 5% cut would in any event be closer to what Republicans ultimately want. They could hold out for a deal preferable to the default, since there would be very low costs imposed on the public in the interim.
Yes, if the Republicans were smart, they’d deprive the statists of this weapon. Unfortunately, there are lots of things the Republicans would do if they were smart, that they don’t. Which is why I’m not a Republican.
The problem, of course, is that the Republican leadership is not much less statist than their Democratic counterparts. The only way this nonsense can ever end is if a majority of us, regardless of political stripe, demands fiscal responsibility from the government. As things are trending, that seems unlikely, but it’s not entirely impossible, either. We’re heading for a permanent malaise à la Japan at this rate.
I’ve wondered for a long while now how a Republican Congress would interact with a libertarian or libertarianesque president like Rand Paul, especially if that president took extraordinary measures to try to restore limited government.
As I’ve suggested before, I don’t understand why a Republcan Congress needs to act like bullies during a shutdown. Say, We want the essential services of the government to run, and we want to send the president a budget funding other things at an appropriate level. We’re going to send them in pieces so the parts we all agree on get done. Here’s a bill to fund the Coast Guard, the FAA, interstate highways, national parks,…
Let the president veto those if he wants to take all the blame for them. If he does sign them, then send him a bill for the rest at with the needed cuts and let him deal if he wants them funded at all.
I really don’t see why this should be a political problem for the Republicans.
The problem is that when a republican congress sends a budget bill to cover just the essentials, if a democrat chief executive vetoes it the press spins it hard as the republican’s fault. Similarly if a democrat congress sends a pork barrel budget to a republican president and it gets vetoed, “it’s the republican’s fault.”
I think it would be hard for the press to spin a veto of the Coast Guard appropriation as the Republicans’ fault.
Some things actually poll very well; one of them is “cutting unnecessary government spending 10% across the board”. I think the American people would have no trouble at all telling the difference between “shutting down the government” and funding essential things and offering to deal to work out the rest.
It makes too much sense; it would deny those DC drama queens their drama!
Griping over little things should not shut the whole works down. But good luck getting around a President making an executive order to cause the 5% reduction to be as painful as a colonoscopy. That would be a usurpation of powers issue over which the current occupant would gladly go to war. I suspect that such a thing, implemented by the current administration, would result in everything closing down and our valued unionized federal public servants sitting at home on paid vacations.
There are no essential government services.
Shut it all down.
The Deadliest Catch people people discovered that during a government shutdown no crabbers get their permits. Whether or not this is usual or government engaging in theatrics like with the NPS, we will never know.
That’s probably the best example of “government services” I’ve ever heard.
Even with all the biased press, political granstanding by Reid and Obama, stupid focused shutdowns whose purpose was to maximize irritation…..even with the fact that nothing bad happened during the shutdown………
The Republicans still won the 2014 elections in a massive landslide.
So why are they afraid of the shutdown? I do not know.
The Republicans still won the 2014 elections in a massive landslide.
So why are they afraid of the shutdown? I do not know.
We’ll see what happens once the Republican majority actually gets into office.
The Hill reports:
“McConnell and other key GOP leaders have signaled they want to return to regular order and pass individual appropriations bills rather than massive funding packages that are cobbled together in haste.”
*IF* they do this, it would be a huge step in being able to control the Executive Overreach, cut the budget, reduce spending etc.
As MikeR says – vetoing a bill specifically for the Coast Guard (for example) shifts the blame from the Congress to the Executive branch.
Recall that the most recent shutdown wasn’t over spending levels, it was over the GOP’s insistence on gutting Obamacare, and the Democrats’ refusal to do so. It’s hard to see how automatic spending cuts would help resolve that sort of orthogonal stand-off.
“Recall that the most recent shutdown wasn’t over spending levels, it was over the GOP’s insistence on gutting Obamacare, and the Democrats’ refusal to do so. It’s hard to see how automatic spending cuts would help resolve that sort of orthogonal stand-off.”
Whyt do you hate Obama so?
It was all his idea…..
“it was over the GOP’s insistence on gutting Obamacare,”
Hooray for that insistence!
MORE MORE!
The shutdown rediced – though only a bit – the rate of growth in government spending. Hooray for that!
But as we all know we need much much more in the way of cutting government spending:
Go look at the graph here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-02/us-debt-soars-100-billion-last-day-2014-hits-record-1814-trillion
and then read this among other interesting things:
“that total US debt has increased by 70% under Obama, from $10.625 trillion on January 21, 2009 to $18.005 trillion most recently.”
………………..
“As of the last day of 2014, total US debt soared by $98 billion in one day (driven again by Social Security debt surging on the last day of the month to a record $5.117 trillion), and closing off 2014 with a new all time high total of $18.141 trillion in Federal debt – an increase of $136 billion in the month of December and $790 billion for all of 2014.”