Government Miiiiiight Not Shut Down Tonight
Chaos caucus outraged.
It’s entirely possible you didn’t know that today (Friday, March 22, 2024) was yet another deadline by which Congress has to pass a bill to keep the federal government funded, or an 80 percent chunk of the government will shut down when the clock strikes midnight and Mitch McConnell turns into a pumpkin. Hah! You thought we were going to say “turtle”! (To be fair, he will turn into a pumpkin that’s shaped like a turtle.)
In fact, Yr Wonkette didn’t remember this latest shutdown deadline ourselves! At least not until we read yesterday that the White House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), and House Speaker For Now Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) reached an agreement on a budget deal to prevent a shutdown, and even to keep the federal government running through September 30, the end of the fiscal year. That means we can look forward to six months without any threats of a government shutdown until right before the election.
And surely Republicans wouldn’t be so cynical as to think the chaos of shutting down the government a month and some before the election would help them or Donald Trump, would they?
Well shit, you’re right.
But that’s a worry for a whole six months from now! Like House Republicans, we will just put it out of our minds until maybe the third week of September. Unlike House Republicans, we will not use the next six months to try to impeach Hunter Biden’s laptop, ban all abortions and IVF except for wealthy Republican donors, or mandate coal in school lunches. (Just kidding, Republicans are right now trying to ban free school lunch entirely.)
In any case, now that the budget year is half over, there’s a deal to fund the remaining half, and if the House and Senate both pass the bill before time runs out tonight, no government shutdown unless some assholes in the Senate like Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee) try to slow everything down with procedural delays, which they have “signaled” they will.
Well shit, again.
But as the Washington Post explains (gift link),
If the upper chamber cannot reach unanimous consent on how much time to spend on those amendments before a vote Friday, Schumer would probably have to tee up a vote for Sunday or even Monday instead, because of Senate procedural rules.
If that causes a partial shutdown over the weekend, disruptions would be fairly minimal, since most federal workers are already off. Those who have to work over the weekend, like members of the military, Border Patrol agents, and TSA airport screeners, would go without pay, hopefully, for just a few days.
Heck, because of that wacky split-funding plan that Johnson insisted on earlier in this hellish process, national parks will stay open because Congress already passed funding for the Interior Department and a bunch of other agencies earlier this month. Yes, this is terribly complicated and confusing, possibly by design.
If somehow a shutdown went longer, worser things would start happening, like IRS workers going on furlough in the middle of tax season, but again, the process should be far enough along by the end of the day that the bill should go to Joe Biden for his signature before any shutdown, or by Monday at the latest. One hopes.
The Post reports that Johnson prepared the way for quick passage of the bill by suspending a bunch of House rules, like one requiring 72 hours between introducing and passing legislation so all members can claim they’ve read it. That’s left members of the House Chaos Caucus angrier than usual, and that’s a group whose baseline status is “apoplectic.” But apart from griping, it doesn’t look like the crazies are out to defenestrate Prague, at least not at the moment.
So what’s in this thing? Republicans, after killing a real border bill because Donald Trump wants to run on CHAOS ON THE BOARDER!!!,* included some symbolic Git Tuff measures for border enforcement, like more money for detention beds and for Border Patrol officers, and a 20 percent cut in US aid to nonprofits that provide services for newly arrived migrants, because Fuck You Jesus and fuck your “welcome the stranger” treason, that only encourages the filthy animals. *(Yes, we know. Intentional.)
While they were at it, Republicans also imposed a 12-month ban on aid to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), because Israel accuses some UNRWA employees of participating in the October 7 attacks by Hamas terrorists that killed 1,200 people. Problem is, UNRWA is also the primary agency distributing food and relief supplies to civilians in Gaza.
“We cannot just witness people starving,” said Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.). “Posterity is going to ask: ‘What was wrong with them? They saw people starving, they saw people with their homes being destroyed, their hospitals destroyed and infrastructure destroyed and their babies being killed, and they did nothing?’ I don’t know how we can do this.”
And for the sake of pure pettiness, the GOP cut foreign aid programs by six percent, even though such aid is already microscopic, less than one percent of federal spending. And in a huge Culture Wars victory, the bill will prohibit non-official flags from flying on US Embassies, a little fuck you to the occasional inclusion of Pride flags. Other than that pointless non-display, Dems blocked Republican crap like limiting LGBTQ+ rights or further restricting abortion access.
Dems managed to get some things they wanted, too, like a boost in Head Start spending, funding for climate resilience through the Pentagon (airfields don’t work well when submerged), and “an additional 12,000 special immigrant visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. military and are attempting to escape the Taliban government,” thank Crom.
Now it’s on to fighting over the fiscal 2025 budget. Joe Biden has already proposed a budget that will help Americans, Republicans want a budget that would cut Social Security by raising the retirement age, and by god Joe should hammer that point home every chance he gets.
ALSO ON THIS TOPIC, BEFORE!
(Reuters / WaPo (gift link) / NBC News]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please subscribe, or if a one-time donation keeps your fiscal house in order, then that’s great for us too!
When I hear any Republican talk about raising the retirement age or doing anything to Social Security except strengthen it, I want to beat them to a bloody pulp with a goddamn KJV Bible, an annotated Constitution and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the collected speeches of FDR, and the full transcript of Congressional hearings and reports that led to the created of the goddamned motherfucking social safety net in the first place.
With votes. And a goddamn pitchfork.
Biden should go to the podium, and profusely thank Speaker Mike Johnson for showing true bipartisanship, and showing he can put politics aside to move the country forward...you know, all the shit the nutbags hate.