No Winners
It’s been a week since the Senate logjam broke, leading to reopening of the federal government a few days ago.
What a waste of time, energy and money.
The Democrats held the continuing resolution to keep funding the government at past levels hostage to get fat insurance company subsidies in to protect Obamacare. The tactic did not work, and now there’s movement to restructuring the whole system—not what they wanted. That strategy fell apart and other than a vague promise to vote separately on some form of subsidies in December, Democrats gained nothing.
Republicans certainly lost ground, since the best deal they put forward as the fiscal year ended in September was to keep funding govement at bloated Biden-era levels. That’s still where we are now. Why did the House not pass the normal appropriations bills forwarded by the committee? The Speaker hopes that can be done by the end of January—four full months into the fiscal year. And, of course, there’s no certainty of that even happening.
The biggest problem was the harm done to the economy, including workers who did not get paid. That includes private workers, whose jobs were paused because of lack of government business. The damage to the economy can be surpassed, but it can never be recovered.
One bill that should be passed is to prevent government shutdowns like this. When the fiscal year ends, if no new budget is passed, the government stays open under current spending levels, but Congress is restrained from funding travel for members or staff until the new budget is passed. There are variations on that idea sitting there, and while it would not solve everything, it would at least prevent what we just experienced.
All politics, and not for the people. That’s the current situation—a far cry from what the founders had hoped for. Let’s see if we can right the ship enough to be worthy by next year’s 250th anniversary.
