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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   30724 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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I’ve been relatively happy with McCarthy. But I support Ukraine funding.

We do need to cut federal spending. The current levels are harming the economy. If we cut federal spending it would cause demand to fall. But that fall is easy for the fed to compensate for by cutting rates. We could go back to the 2010’s economy of big but workable deficits and low rates. Bidenomics has been a disaster.

Also I wish they were doing a better job impeach Biden. (Let’s not relitigate that but personally I believe it’s correct and just).

I’ve been relatively happy with McCarthy.

...

We do need to cut federal spending.

I don't understand how these sentences can be placed so close together.

He only holds the house by a few votes while the other party has the Presidency and Senate.

Government shutdowns have tended to be bad for the party that does them.

Government shutdowns have tended to be bad for the party that does them.

Which is to say the Republicans, because if the two sides don't agree, it's always the Republicans who get the blame (because the media decides this).

For as much as this forum has talked about how conservatives need to refuse to cooperate with dems on matters of policy, this seems a bit cheeky. The mean old media is just so biased, the republicans surely had nothing to do with any legislative gridlock.

I mean. Rarely. Whenever Republicans have control of a branch they typically pass financing regular order bills piecemeal, as is supposed to happen, for the majority of departments months in advance. And then the other branches either don't vote on them or promise to veto them until an omnibus/cr is passed. This is why the "shutdown" and "debt ceiling" canards are as such, the Democrats have, over the last 12-15 years, never passed regular spending bills for the subsections of the government. Like, the Republicans could pass a bill for DOD the Dems would vote for (as is supposed to happen), but they just wouldn't put it to a vote, because then they lose the leverage of soldiers not getting paid (which the media would unfairly pin on Republicans) because republicans wouldn't fund 300 billion in solar panels in Toronto.

Whenever Republicans have control of a branch they typically pass financing regular order bills piecemeal, as is supposed to happen, for the majority of departments months in advance.

The focus is on Republicans here because they specifically didn't do that, and the hold up was opposition by the right flank.

party leaders served notice that in order to fulfill the mission of taking up individual bills, a scheduled recess the week of Oct. 2 was likely to be scrapped for floor consideration of the Interior-Environment and Energy-Water spending bills. That in itself is an admission that the chamber doesn’t have time to pass all the individual bills before the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

McCarthy pointed out that the House hasn’t been able to pass more than one bill largely due to conservative holdouts who have objected to floor consideration since the initial bills were ready to go in July.

This even though ironically the Appropriations Committee passed all 12 bills with full markups and on a bipartisan basis for the first time in forever.

Indeed, but this also indicates a total lack of bipartisanship from Democrats. If there are all 12 passed, and 8 Republican holdouts, a good faith few Dems would go with it. Just like this motion to vacate. McCarthy has shown to be a good faith partner, even if he holds to principles. His reward was the Dems giving him zero good faith in return on the motion to vacate.

I think you might have the OOO mixed up, most of the bills were never taken to the floor for the Democrats to vote for or against either way. First the majority party agrees on a "rule" which is where the hold up was. To my knowledge it's unheard of for the Speaker of the House to ask the opposition party for help getting bills to floor, and McCarthy certainly didn't do that.

McCarthy has shown to be a good faith partner

?

He pushed spending bills that were significantly lower that what he committed to in the debt ceiling negotiations and then even after the Democrats saved him, he did a public press conference blaming them for the hold up, even though he's admitted countless times it was the Freedom Caucus. This is most certainly not good faith.

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