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X Defeats Congress

13 Comments

Maybe it’s a new world, politically.

[Update a few minutes later]

[Update a while later]

This seems somewhat related: Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment.

I said the day after the election that I had a great feeling of relief, and this sort of explains it. It’s almost like when Saruman’s spell over Théoden was broken.

13 thoughts on “X Defeats Congress”

  1. I would think that a clean CR bill plus a clean disaster relief bill could be put together and voted on in 20 minutes. There’s no need for a shutdown unless politicians want to play brinksmanship games.

  2. Well, the new, sorta-clean (reduced from 1500 pages to 116) bill failed, as expected.

    38 Republicans voted “no”, and I’m having a hard time blaming them much; the addition of the debt-ceiling waiver, and it not being accompanied by any spending cuts, was guaranteed to fail to get Freedom Caucus support.

    Also guaranteeing failure; the method used to bring this to the floor required 2/3 to pass.

    So, here’s a crazy idea; talk to the Republicans who voted “no” and see what they want spending cuts it’d take to get them to “yes”. If you can cobble together a simple majority with them, then do it. No Democrat votes needed. Then, once passed, immediately adjourn the house for Christmas. That way, if the Democrats in the Senate (or a Biden veto) kill the bill, it’s all on them.

    1. The real opportunity to cut spending will happen after January 20th. Why play games now with a clean CR?

      1. Agreed on the real opportunity coming after Jan 20th, but (as far as I know) the situation now is that either something passes, or we’ve got a shutdown the Democrats will blame republicans for. And part of that dynamic is that a few R members of the house won’t vote for it without cuts (at least, that’s what I think they’re saying).

        So, my personal preference is to do one of two things; A, get those reluctant Rs aboard, or, let this thing crash and burn (and cause a shutdown) in a way that makes it clear democrats are to blame.

        1. Seems Johnson may have come up with a solution:

          “Per additional reports, this will involve just one vote — on the bill that failed Thursday, minus the debt ceiling limit — and it will be under suspension (thus requiring a two-thirds majority), so as to get it done today.”

          So they are going to vote on 3 separate bills instead of one bill with 3 things. I like that as I’ve hated these multi-tree-ornament bills for years.

  3. “This seems somewhat related: Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment.”

    A fascinating read. AS I got through it I was reminded of Harry Seldon and the Foundation.

    1. Fascinating and horrifying! That was the clearest and most detailed explanation of how secret combinations have been taking over our society.

    2. I think the failure of Axelrod’s gambit was almost inevitable, a certainly so once Musk bought Twitter, because a world of manufactured lies eventually collapses in a preference cascade. The only question is how soon and how violently.

      1. Permission Structures, Overton Windows, Preference Cascades, Information Silos, Echo Chambers, Belief Bubbles. I’m either going to have to go back to college or get Matt Weiner to do an updated MadMen series to understand the new Seldonology.

  5. I think Bongino is where I heard it first, “Why doesn’t government balance the budget? Because they don’t want to.” This might not be a direct quote, but I think it makes the point. If everyone in government can classify information, then we need fewer of them. A lot fewer.

  6. I don’t envy democrats having to sell the idea that the American people being better informed about what their government is doing being a bad thing…. but at least they have the vast majority of the media to help them sell it.

  7. Rapid Onset Political Enlightenment aka ROPE. If you study American History and given enough of it, you’ll see this is a deep American tradition.

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