U.S. Budget & OBBB | OCT 1 - Gov’t Shutdown Begins

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CFordUNC said:


Trump and Rs keep making it clear that there’s no limit to the pain they’re willing to inflict on the country to avoid preventing premium hikes. They’re willing to let people starve. They’re willing to let people go without pay. They’re willing to make flying a nightmare that’s becoming riskier. They could compromise with Dems on health care. They refuse. They could change the Senate rules and vote to open the government right now. They refuse.They’ve become so unpopular that they just lost off year elections by historic margins. They don’t care. In fact, their response is to inflict even more pain on the country - including their own voters. They are sadists, and it seems like the only message they’ll understand is losing their jobs next year.
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Trump turned around and attacked Air Traffic Controllers for calling in sick, even though the air travel slow down seems to be the straw that broke the back of Democratic unity for the shutdown:

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heelinhell said:
I've been day drinking since 7am so I may be missing your point.

Are you suggesting the objective of Dems was not to force GQPers to extend the subsidies ?

Are you thinking that if GQPers in the Senate will actually hold a vote on subsidies in December now that the Dems have caved ?

Are you thinking if GQPers in the Senate will hold a vote and the vote likely fails that Dems will shut the government down in January after caving in November ?

Are you asserting that Dems caving has saved folks from losing SNAP benefits ?
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I’m reluctant to guess what is in the head of the 8 democrats who struck the deal. Likely, some democrats thought they could get subsidies and others knew it wouldn’t happen. Overall, leadership likely thought this was a way to bring attention to an issue.

I’d put the odds of a December vote in the senate at 80%. That is a condition of the compromise and the senate tends to honor those deals.

I don’t know what will happen in January. Successive shutdowns have happened in the past. My guess would be that if the democrats got senators voting no on the record, that might be sufficient for political purposes. It is also possible that an actual record vote may get some R senators to vote yes.

SNAP is funded through next August under the compromise.
 
Hugely disappointing of course but let’s be real. Ezra Klein effectively lays it out here: Opinion | What Were Democrats Thinking?

Fact is that the circumstances here were exactly the same as those presented in the last budget battle in which Dems, led by Schumer, calculated the risk and declined the battle.

The only difference was that Dems now had to factor in the consequential fallout of falling enthusiasm by Dem voters and its predictable impact on turnout in the recent elections.

In other words, the whole process was a manner of political kabuki that was orchestrated by Democratic strategists.

Bottom line: transactional politics still rules the domain while Democrats struggle to find their new North Star in a synthesis of what the Mamdani insurgency represents and their neoliberal patterns.
 
The idea is to win the war. So when you lose a battle, then you want to end up in a better position to win the war.

The Dems choose this battle. I just hope they are in a better position to win the war. Because if the they did it to just show some fight, then its a disaster.
 
sunnyheel said:
Hugely disappointing of course but let’s be real. Ezra Klein effectively lays it out here: Opinion | What Were Democrats Thinking?
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From Erza's Article
But it’s worth keeping this in perspective: The shutdown was a skirmish, not the real battle. Both sides were fighting for position, and Democrats, if you look at the polls, are ending up in a better one than they were when they started. They elevated their best issue — health care — and set the stage for voters to connect higher premiums with Republican rule
 
Calheel said:
I’m reluctant to guess what is in the head of the 8 democrats who struck the deal. Likely, some democrats thought they could get subsidies and others knew it wouldn’t happen. Overall, leadership likely thought this was a way to bring attention to an issue.

I’d put the odds of a December vote in the senate at 80%. That is a condition of the compromise and the senate tends to honor those deals.

I don’t know what will happen in January. Successive shutdowns have happened in the past. My guess would be that if the democrats got senators voting no on the record, that might be sufficient for political purposes. It is also possible that an actual record vote may get some R senators to vote yes.

SNAP is funded through next August under the compromise.
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So SNAP is funded through August. I assume extended with the reductions and restrictions under the OBBBA ?

So if the bill is passed in the Congress that will render Trump's plea to SCOTUS to deny food assistance to hungry Americans moot ?
 
heelinhell said:
So I'm guessing you agree with me that the Dems should have just accepted the original deal as the same one they accepted yesterday. Why put you and others through the pain and stress for over 50 days and accomplish nothing to protect health care or food assistance ?
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50 days ago the problem would be easier to ignore and easier to obfuscate blame. By having the fight play out in the press as shutdown pain increased it’s easier to tag the Republicans as solely responsible for the loss of the subsidies and subsequent premium spike which became public with hard numbers during the shutdown. The minority party never gets a total victory in a shutdown fight. The best you can hope for is a political victory so long as Dems who wanted to shut it down forever don’t muck it up by being too harsh on Dems for accepting the inevitable result.
 
UNCMSinLS said:
I really like Tim Miller but I think he got this one dead wrong. This cave will be perceived as permission from democrats wrapped in a bow for Trump to do any damn thing he pleases. Plus, it feeds the narrative that dems were indeed responsible for the shutdown - "See, dems ended the shutdown that THEY started!"
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Agreed . . !
 
UNCBAdookJD said:
50 days ago the problem would be easier to ignore and easier to obfuscate blame. By having the fight play out in the press as shutdown pain increased it’s easier to tag the Republicans as solely responsible for the loss of the subsidies and subsequent premium spike which became public with hard numbers during the shutdown. The minority party never gets a total victory in a shutdown fight. The best you can hope for is a political victory so long as Dems who wanted to shut it down forever don’t muck it up by being too harsh on Dems for accepting the inevitable result
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Unfortunately, the minority party not only didn't get a total victory, it got no victory. And there will be no political victory in the mid term elections because killing the enthusiasm in Democratic base will have many of them sitting home on election day in my humble opinion.
 
heelinhell said:
there will be no political victory in the mid term elections because killing the enthusiasm in Democratic base will have many of them sitting home on election day in my humble opinion.
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I totally understand feeling this way right now, but I've got to very respectfully but very firmly say that I disagree with this very strongly. Another year's worth of watching ICE thugs patrolling American streets and harassing American citizens and detaining people extrajudicially, another year's worth of seeing every single aspect of life become completely unaffordable for everyone but the upper-middle and upper classes, and another year's worth of watching Donald Trump and his Republican enablers trampling all over the U.S. Constitution, will cause there to be zero turnout problem for Democrats next November.
 
CFordUNC said:
I totally understand feeling this way right now, but I've got to very respectfully but very firmly say that I disagree with this very strongly. Another year's worth of watching ICE thugs patrolling American streets and harassing American citizens and detaining people extrajudicially, another year's worth of seeing every single aspect of life become completely unaffordable for everyone but the upper-middle and upper classes, and another year's worth of watching Donald Trump and his Republican enablers trampling all over the U.S. Constitution, will cause there to be zero turnout problem for Democrats next November.
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Or Independents
 
Not so fast in the Senate



Rand’s is germane to the underlying bill, Mullin says, but there’s another R demanding a vote on legislation to withhold member pay during shutdowns.
 
The simple truth is that if this was the best outcome the Dems could get, then they were stupid to pick this fight at all. All that they achieved was...

- Go back to the status quo in government positions & pay before the shutdown started
- A symbolic vote in the Senate that won't matter in the least in the long run
- Maybe a couple of percentage points in polling

That's not worth the pain inflicted on people plus the general feeling that always accompanies a shutdown of "There goes the government again, fucking things up."

If Dems couldn't do better than this, than they should have just passed a CR before the shutdown and gone on with business as usual.
 
SnoopRob said:
The simple truth is that if this was the best outcome the Dems could get, then they were stupid to pick this fight at all. All that they achieved was...

- Go back to the status quo in government positions & pay before the shutdown started
- A symbolic vote in the Senate that won't matter in the least in the long run
- Maybe a couple of percentage points in polling

That's not worth the pain inflicted on people plus the general feeling that always accompanies a shutdown of "There goes the government again, fucking things up."

If Dems couldn't do better than this, than they should have just passed a CR before the shutdown and gone on with business as usual.
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I'm not disagreeing, as I still don't know what was the best option. But here's a different way to look at it. What narratives did this either reinforce or contradict?

The narrative has been that congressional Dems are weak. Regardless of how it ended, this was BY FAR the largest exercise of minority power we have seen from the Dems since January. Dems will take a hit from the left for caving, but I think it's possible the overall impression will be that the Dems are finally doing SOMETHING. May depend on messaging over the next few weeks, and I wish I was more optimistic about that.

The narrative on the other side has been that Trump and his minions in Congress are chaos agents, out of touch, and dishonest. It's hard to imagine something that could reinforce that narrative more clearly than Trump tearing down the East Wing to build a golden ballroom and hosting a Great Gatsby party at his mansion in Florida while countless federal employees are not getting paid and SNAP recipients can't feed their kids.

If it is the case that economic anger and anxiety will dominate the midterms, and I think it almost certainly will, this could turn out to be a really good tone-setter for the Dems. Or they could blow it. But as frustrating as it is to see them cave, I don't think it's self-evident that the Dems shouldn't have taken a stand in the first place.
 
SnoopRob said:
The simple truth is that if this was the best outcome the Dems could get, then they were stupid to pick this fight at all. All that they achieved was...

- Go back to the status quo in government positions & pay before the shutdown started
- A symbolic vote in the Senate that won't matter in the least in the long run
- Maybe a couple of percentage points in polling

That's not worth the pain inflicted on people plus the general feeling that always accompanies a shutdown of "There goes the government again, fucking things up."

If Dems couldn't do better than this, than they should have just passed a CR before the shutdown and gone on with business as usual.
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I guess the Dems should have known by now they can't compromise in good faith with the Pubs because they are mostly just horrible people who don't give a damn about anyone else. Maybe that's the only reason they should have known not to at least try to do anything. Seems they were kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't since the Pubs have control of Congress and they are a bunch of soulless pricks.
 
SnoopRob said:
The simple truth is that if this was the best outcome the Dems could get, then they were stupid to pick this fight at all. All that they achieved was...

- Go back to the status quo in government positions & pay before the shutdown started
- A symbolic vote in the Senate that won't matter in the least in the long run
- Maybe a couple of percentage points in polling

That's not worth the pain inflicted on people plus the general feeling that always accompanies a shutdown of "There goes the government again, fucking things up."

If Dems couldn't do better than this, than they should have just passed a CR before the shutdown and gone on with business as usual.
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Except then:
1. The GOPs callousness about SNAP would never have been mentioned
2. The GOPs negligence about health care would have been brushed over
3. We wouldn't be having a coming big discussion on health care at all
 
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