The CR bill: it’s not business as usual
Oh, they tried to make it business as usual. But the message went out from the incoming administration and the voters that this wasn’t going to be okay. And Congress was forced to listen.
The revolt was spearheaded by Elon Musk, one of Trump’s closest advisers and co-chair of the nongovernmental Department of Government Efficiency, as he went on a tirade on X Wednesday against Republicans who supported the stopgap measure.
Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance then weighed in on the GOP battle in a lengthy statement issued from the Ohio senator’s X account in which they called on Republicans to be “tough” and “smart” and not accede to Democratic requests.
The leaders also issued a new directive that had not been discussed previously: Pass a debt limit increase before Trump comes into office so the deliberations are held now under President Biden’s term.
Trump then went on Truth Social and directly threatened Republicans who wouldn’t vote for a debt limit increase now with a primary.
What now? Perhaps this:
“I was communicating with Elon last night,” Johnson said Wednesday on Fox & Friends. “Elon, Vivek [Ramaswamy] and I were on a text chain together, and I was explaining to them the background of this. And Vivek and I talked last night, about almost midnight, and he said, ‘Look, I get it.’ He said, ‘We understand you’re in an impossible position. Everybody knows that.’”
Several people on comments threads have been pointing out that AI has helped the dynamic duo, Vivek and Elon, to evaluate the pitfalls in the bloated 1500-page bill quickly.
The Ramaswamy/Musk DOGE team is a fascinating and innovative development that only emerged in the latter part of the Trump campaign and especially after the election. Two smart fellows, they felt smart. Washington DC is often where smart people meet their match in bureaucratic boondoggle. But we’ll see; this development has a lot of promise.
And it really really helps that Trump won a decisive victory that is seen as a mandate for change. That’s unusual for a second term, but this is an unusual second term – a second term that’s noncontiguous with the first term.
And you know what? “Government shutdown” isn’t quite the threat it used to be. This old dog may not hunt anymore:
“Republicans have now unilaterally decided to break a bipartisan agreement that they made,” Jeffries, a New York Democrat, told reporters Wednesday night. “House Republicans will now own any harm that is visited upon the American people that results from a government shutdown or worse. An agreement is an agreement. It was bipartisan. And there is nothing more to say.”
Oh, I’m pretty sure there will be more to say from both sides.
As I said on another thread, there is a window of opportunity at the beginning of a session that fades as Congresspeople become distracted (and timid) from tough votes.
Now is the time to draw the line and show the American voter the rhetoric about reforming government wasn’t just empty campaign promises.
This is an easy vote. It will only get harder. We need to remind our representatives they need to put the countries fiscal mess ahead of their own interests (re-election).
Vivek should be elected Speaker of the House. The Speaker doesn’t have to be a Representative. He did, after all, run for President and he is presently “unemployed.”
He could really supercharge DOGE if he was the Speaker.
Rand Paul tweeted that Elon should be Speaker, but he has four other jobs and 12 kids.
GOP senators threaten to filibuster any CR bill that doesn’t include $100 billion in disaster relief.
This should not be in a CR bill. In exchange for an agreement by the new Congress to bring up relief at the beginning of the next term, they should withdraw this threat.
BREAKING NEWS: GOP Senators Announce They Will Filibuster Government Funding Without Disaster Aid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ry-e0jhyRg
Disaster relief shouldn’t be part of the regular budget, but should funded by an insurance program that is paid for separately.
Yes, Vivek for Speaker.
Just saw Trump approved the new bill….116 pages down from the absurd 1100+ pages. That’s a victory right there.
But we have to keep a close watch on all the GOP critters in Congress. I keep going back to Mark Twain’s pronouncement that there’s no native American criminal class, except for Congress.
I’m indebted to Jeffries for this distillation of the Swamp attitude. What the voters think does not count, it’s just what our 535 friends here think that counts.
Lol, some of the over 55s who still watch the news on TV maybe might think that.
Watch for heavy attacks on Musk. Left is blaming him for taking their graft away.
Trump’s as bad as the other Washington politicians…talk about talking out both sides of one’s mouth!?!
He wants “spending cuts” but also wants a ‘two-year suspension of debt limit to January 2027’ so he can spend more!?!
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) may have said it best about Trump’s “SUCCESS in Washington!” statement:
GOP strikes a new spending deal that includes disaster aid and raising the debt limit
@SHIREHOME:Watch for heavy attacks on Musk.
Lol, must be a day ending in Y. They can put another anti-Musk bumper sticker on their Teslas.
The original bill was negotiated in private among two Senate leaders and two House leaders, with the rest of the members kept in ignorance until the last minute. This is not how “bipartisan agreements” are made.
@Kate:This is not how “bipartisan agreements” are made.
I’m afraid that all too often, it has been.
“@Kate:This is not how “bipartisan agreements” are made.
I’m afraid that all too often, it has been.”
In addition to the bloated spending and graft provisions, this is a great part of what the argument is about. How Congress does things must change.
Related, heh, from the “Call Their Bluff” File:
https://instapundit.com/691365/
“He wants “spending cuts” but also wants a ‘two-year suspension of debt limit to January 2027’ so he can spend more!?!”
No, so he can cut taxes (or not raise them—other than tariffs I suppose). He’s not going to be able to eliminate the deficit overnight. But DOGE at least has a chance to cut spending.
More work to be done. The revised, much smaller bill, is being voted down, 25 Rs against it so far.
It would be easier if the President had Line Item Veto. Oh how I wish he did. I wish Republicans has been willing to push for it while Biden was President. Then maybe it could be used by Trump.
If we could redo it all, let the House pass the budget, let the President sign it or Veto the whole thing or line item Veto it, then the Senate gets the opportunity to override vetos. For line item vetos they should have to consider each one separate.
@Jon Baker: It would be easier if the President had Line Item Veto.
If there some guarantee a Dem would never get the Presidency again maybe, but the President is too powerful as it is, and line item veto would let him in principle cut everything the R’s want out of the budget even if they were the majority.
A line-item veto bill was passed in 1996, but struct down by the SC. A bill was introduced in 2006 that would require a simple majority of Congress to agree to the veto, was passed in the House, but never passed in the Senate.
From Wikipedia:
A true line-item veto would require a constitutional amendment.
It’s my understanding that Musk, being foreign born to non-citizen parents is ineligible to be Speaker as Presidential succession is an insurmountable barrier.
Ramaswamy is native born and IMO, would as Speaker and with Trump’s backing… delight in cramming single-issue spending bills down the throats of RINO Reps.
Then passed on to the Senate, let Senators try to excuse; a refusal to fund just the military, a refusal to fund only Social Security, a refusal to just fund Medicare and a refusal to only fund school lunch programs, etc.,etc.
Fund only the necessary and when the money runs out… just ignore the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Bingo! Balanced budget…
I agree with Geoffrey Britain. If they were going to make a non-congressperson Speaker, Ramaswamy would be the right choice. I thought of J.D. Vance, but he already will constitutionally preside over the Senate. I hope he may work actively with the Senate.
Giving Speaker Mike Johnson the benefit of the doubt, this was likely a trap for the Democrats.
The bill was a wish list of ending pork/entitlement/potential traps as the last act of Democrats power in Congress. It was intended to create uproar by the Trump and most Republicans around the country. It now includes taking out the debt ceiling trap and still includes disaster relief/farm aid– which benefit Red states.
Hmm. The CR failed, with 35 Republican votes against. This is not a good way to start Trump’s second term. The debt ceiling extension to 2027 might have been too much too quickly.
ref my comment at 5:45 pm — “SUCCESS in Washington!” statement…
Trump left a lot of soundbites & and printable quotes the past two days that will probably come back to haunt him & GOP over the next 4-years…
@Brian E:Hmm. The CR failed, with 35 Republican votes against.
Not necessarily a bad thing. It was still pretty porky, as Karmi’s link pointed out.
Giving Speaker Mike Johnson the benefit of the doubt, this was likely a trap for the Democrats.
I wouldn’t, because he doesn’t have a time machine and he’s been helping the Democrats spend money and pass their initiatives since long before the election.
@Karmi:Trump left a lot of soundbites & and printable quotes the past two days that will probably come back to haunt him & GOP over the next 4-years…
Oh no. I hope he doesn’t lose Walter Cronkite, or he might lose Middle America.
I hope he didn’t say anything about shooting people on Fifth Avenue or where starlets let you grab them. What a disaster that would be.
When Chuck Schumer was cramming 1,500 pages of pork into that bill, which would have to be voted up or down on the last day of the session, with nobody having time to read it, he never realized that ChatGPT could read it and summarize it in a matter of minutes. A win for technology, and us. The Democrats will probably resort to writing CR’s longhand, on parchment. Or like Caligula, carving the letters of the laws on the tops of marble pillars.
Musk, being foreign born to non-citizen parents is ineligible to be Speaker as Presidential succession is an insurmountable barrier.
No, only the VP has to be a natural-born citizen. A foreign-born Speaker would just be passed over and the President Pro Tem of the Senate would be next.
Geoffrey Britain on December 19, 2024 at 8:18 pm said:
“It’s my understanding that Musk, being foreign born to non-citizen parents is ineligible to be Speaker as Presidential succession is an insurmountable barrier.”
A good point I certainly had not thought about!
But then Jimmy on December 19, 2024 at 11:03 pm said:
“No, only the VP has to be a natural-born citizen. A foreign-born Speaker would just be passed over and the President Pro Tem of the Senate would be next.”
Setting aside the fact that the phrase “natural born” should really be “native born” … I haven’t heard of any “native citizen” president being born via Caesarean section … but wouldn’t they also qualify to be president?
I was wondering about the reality of the Article I Section 2 language, as implying the Speaker is a properly elected member of the House, as an implicit understanding even though it is not explictly stated. I am not sure a non-member Speaker would survive a SCOTUS analysis and ruling …. and we can be pretty sure such an objection would be raised.
I was also wondering about the few naturalized citizens who have become governors or members of Congress, or executive branch agency secretaries. I was thinking specifically of Jennifer Granholm (but I believe there are a few others?), who was born in Canada and became a naturalized citizen in 1980. Under the presidential succession act it appears the secy of Energy is 15th in succession. In the very unlikely event a succession sequence had to go that far down the list, Jimmy would suggest she would be passed over for whomever holds the 16th slot.
@Cap’n Rusty:Caligula, carving the letters of the laws on the tops of marble pillars.
Oh we’re way past him. He made one horse a senator, and we’ve made almost a hundred. Or at least their asses.
Setting aside the fact that the phrase “natural born” should really be “native born”
“Natural born” is the term used in the Constitution.
Trump or Biden, GOP or Dems, we need to stop spending more than we take in. It’s not complicated.
De Tocqueville was wrong (about this, at least).
A fascinating post…
“THE MAN WHO SAW THE FUTURE”—
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/12/the-man-who-saw-the-future.php
Key grafs:
[Emphasis in original]
Niketas @ 9:50pm and 12:13am,
You’re on a roll!
ref my comments at 5:45 pm and 9:10 pm
Trump’s “SUCCESS in Washington!” statement already has the traction it needs for next 4-years
Trump breaks silence—After inserting foot into mouth
Cut spending—but raise the Debt Ceiling so Trump can spend more, sounds hypocritical at best = Terrible Message #1. Terrible Message #2 would be Trump “triumphantly” celebrating another ‘porky‘ (nice description by Niketas C) CR bill that ends in failure also.
Rep. Rich McCormick (Ga) — “this is a negotiation. You need to give me something.”
McCormick doesn’t seem like an idiot, but he’s certainly acting like one. The negotiations aren’t among Republicans in the House. The negotiations are between Republicans in the House and Democrats in the Senate. He can get whatever bauble he wants added, but that’s not going to make it any more likely to pass the Senate. The Senate, at this point is more than willing to let the Republicans squabble amongst themselves and then kill the bill.
The whole point to this strategy is create a narrative that it’s the Democrat Senate shutting down the government.
If this is what President Trump and DOGE are up against, there will be no cuts coming from the Republican House.
The deficit this year, based on current spending levels will be $2 Trillion. In the four years of the Biden administration the deficit has averaged $2 Trillion/year.
GOP Rep. Rich McCormick slams Republican’s new spending bill ahead of expected vote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxisL1zDWzA
the government regards giving the people their own, as spending, we are so far over our skies, there was some new revenue in the SALT loopholes being closed,
mulvaney proposed a budget that cut discretionary spending, but that was DOA,
we saw ridiculous these objections were when they pushed trillions of dollars of excess giveaways under the lockdowns, hundreds of billions to ukraine but nothing for the wall, nothing really to shore up social security and medicare,
Karmi,
Like everything in Washington DC, the debt ceiling is just a political tool to harm/hurt the other side.
From Time:
So as of Jan. 1, 2025 the government will again be spending above the debt ceiling, since the 2024-25 budget will spend $1.8 trillion more than receipts. The government will use accounting tricks to continue paying bills until the summer, when the debt ceiling will again need to be addressed.
This is all smoke and mirrors. The problem Trump faces is that $2 Trillion deficit isn’t going away. Much of what the Biden has done in the last four years is stimulus. Everyone that claims the economy is healthy is ignoring the huge levels of government stimulus. Make the economy go cold turkey is likely going to precipitate/reveal the economy is not doing well.
Trump’s plan to return the economy to economic growth based on market driven economic principles rather than government directed (green new deal).
The money has already been spent during the Biden years. We’ve exceeded the previous debt ceiling by trillions of dollars. Trump doesn’t want to take the artificial heat of raising the ceiling to reflect that– since the media will put that on him, rather than the profligate spending the last four years.
I was wondering about the reality of the Article I Section 2 language, as implying the Speaker is a properly elected member of the House, as an implicit understanding even though it is not explictly stated. I am not sure a non-member Speaker would survive a SCOTUS analysis and ruling …. and we can be pretty sure such an objection would be raised.
==
The floor leaders and whips are members of the chamber. The voting members of the committees (among them the chairman and ranking minority) are members of the chamber. As a rule, officers of the chamber are not members. Not the chaplain, not the parliamentarian, not the secretary, not the doorkeeper, nada. This has been so since the 1st Congress, so it’s rum to claim that the constitutional provision requires that they be members. Conventionally, the speaker is and others are not. It is a convention, not a requirement.
Very interesting 2 Way meeting that includes Newt Gingrich on the CR and the way forward. Good discussion.
The Morning Meeting S3E30 | Trump Transition, Democrat Realignment & Today’s Political News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb55ct7KlF0
A foreign-born Speaker would just be passed over and the President Pro Tem of the Senate would be next.
==
It would be agreeable if those two offices were removed from the order prescribed in the Presidential Succession Law.
the other side of the story,https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1870138912754053447
People don’t understand how dangerous the Department of Government Efficiency is. It may do its task now but it could end Government by the people permanently.
it could end Government by the people permanently– Sennacherib
How so, or are you being sarcastic? The only power they have is tweeting.