An argument for passing a continuing resolution bill …
… [T]he only realistic alternatives to a “clean” CR are a CR-plus or omnibus appropriations package. Either option could only be passed with Democrat support, which means they would be loaded up with expensive nonsense …
… Congress must move past the March 14 funding deadline to focus on reconciliation. Once the House passes a budget resolution, which it did on Feb. 25, a reconciliation process can move forward that will include money for border security and immigration law enforcement, extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, new tax policies such as no taxes on tips, deregulatory changes to unleash domestic oil and natural gas production, and much more.
In short, the reconciliation process is the main vehicle for most of year-one Trump agenda priorities to pass into law. The reconciliation process is so vital because it only requires a simple majority vote in the Senate as opposed to requiring 60 as most bills do. Reconciliation is a profound opportunity to enshrine lasting change, but it takes time and must occur within a specific timeframe. Every minute Congress spends on something else, such as a government shutdown due to the failure to pass a CR, makes reconciliation less likely.
Makes sense to me.
I clicked through to the original article, hoping that the work would be shown for this claim
but no luck.
Disappointed to see the usual narrative
The filibuster can be aside at any time by simple majority vote, and 161 exceptions have been made between 1969 and 2014.
Congress: still doing the ‘Potomac two-step’; new boss, same as the old boss…
Was reading something a while back about the Democratic party being held hostage to “the groups”, which would be all the stakeholders who feel very strongly about this or that niche issue, and this is why Democrats sometimes blow big elections by nailing down their colors to the 20% side of an 80-20 issue. And when they win an election they implement a lot of the 20% stuff for their base in “the groups”.
The Republican dysfunction in Congress is the “permanent minority” party. In the minority, they know exactly what to do: use their leverage to extract appropriations for their cronies, and talk a big game about the conservative stuff they’ll do once they’re ever in power. But when they have a majority, they can’t think of anything but tax cuts. They don’t do as the Democrats and implement stuff for their base, they have no friends to the Right. Actually reducing the size of government, actually advancing conservative legislation, would adversely impact their cronies…
The few Republicans who do stand on principle are excoriated by Right-leaning news and blogs for doing so, as opposed to the Democrats, who lionize the equivalent on their own side (while frequently not doing what those people want either).
A Fed Judge blocked the deportation of the Columbia ex-student that is in the middle of the riots against Jews. Too many of these judges think that they are running the country. Just so tired of it. Few Judges ruled against Biden, except for the SC on student loans.
the problem, besides that cr’s avoid hard choices, and what is stuffed into them, much of the garbage allocations that data republican and the doge crew have turned up come from these cr’s so if doge is going to strip out the funding, then the cr will stuff it back in, what is the point of the exercise,
the student in question, mahmoud khalil, came to columbia from UNWRA (quelle surprise) then again, this was the campus of edward said,
and I still believe bulliet and massad and khalidi, so it stands to reason,
I’m with Neo here. I don’t like how it works, but this is how it works.
This is how we are told it works, certainly. But votes in Congress are the negotiated outcome of the legislative process, they are not the legislative process. The real legislative process does not take place in public, and is rarely reported on.
CAIR seems to be taking up his side, but they may have transferred him to Louisiana, so out of jurisdiction,
so we have given something three 350 million to Taliban controlled afghanistan through AID,
Niketas:
The filibuster has been something that protects us from tyranny of the majority.
Now, well you might say “the Democrats will do away with it the moment they can succeed in doing so.” And I would agree. But I would go on to ask: why couldn’t they do it last time they had the majority? That was during the Biden administration. It certainly wasn’t from lack of trying. What stopped them was two people: Manchin and Sinema. They became pariahs in their party, but they preserved the rights of the minority in the Senate.
If the Republicans jettison the filibuster, that will be the end of any future possibility of the equivalent of a Manchin or Sinema putting a stop on a Democrat majority’s tyranny. There will be no turning back.
Now, you might also say that there’s no chance of someone like Sinema or Manchin ever being elected again on the Democrat side. But there is. There may even be someone like that in there now: Fetterman.
Or, perhaps you think that Democrats will never again control the Senate. I don’t ascribe to that notion.
I think there are other and better ways around the budget issue, and passing a CR and then later using reconciliation is a viable one.
@neo:The filibuster has been something that protects us from tyranny of the majority.
Sorry, this is not accurate. It can be and is set aside at any time by simple majority vote. I’ve given examples any number of times since I’ve been here.
Its real purpose is to protect the majority from accountability. If the narrative is that you “need 60 votes” then people can vote for things they don’t intend to help pass (or vote against things they are actually working toward).
The mechanism is that someone moves for cloture on a point of order. The chair rules that the cloture vote failed because it didn’t have 60 votes. Then the ruling is appealed, and by simply majority vote the chair is overruled.
Once that is done, they go on pretending that you “need 60 votes”, and the legacy media continues to report it that way.
Niketas:
The filibuster has been set aside mostly for three purposes: judgeships, other appointments, and budgets (reconciliation). It protects us from tyranny of the majority for the most part, and certainly did during Biden’s administration. It stopped the passage of DC statehood and HR1 in particular.
@neo:It has been set aside mostly for three purposes: judgeships, other appointments, and budgets (reconciliation).
“Mostly” is doing a lot of work there. They can do it, and do do it, when they want. They have no rules that prevent any filibuster from being set aside according to the procedure I outlined.
It stopped the passage of DC statehood and HR1 in particular. It was quite dramatic.
I’m afraid this is narrative. The reality is that there was not a numerical majority willing to pass these laws by setting aside the filibuster. A simple numerical majority is always the only minimum needed to pass anything. The drama is the point. The lack of accountability of the majority is the point. We should stop falling for it.
On these two issues the Dems got to pretend that they really wanted to do something but couldn’t. It frequently flies under the radar when they do it the other way, like when Mitch McConnell broke his own party’s filibuster so that the Dems could raise the debt ceiling.
If the CR fails 47 will have an opportunity to demonstrate the USG continues to function during temporary funding interruptions. Essential services continue and everyone gets paid once Congress eventually passes and POTUS sings a funding bill. In the meantime DOGE will get a hard list of essential employees. The longer the funding interruption continues the more obvious it will be the USG is way overstaffed. All it will take is an administration that wants to prove the USG can get the job done with essential staffing instead of one that uses the shutdown to hold essential services hostage.
NC at 8:17
“ I’m afraid this is narrative. The reality is that there was not a numerical majority willing to pass these laws by setting aside the filibuster.”
Please provide a reference for this claim if you have one. Or is this just your superior wisdom?
@Bob Wilson:Please provide a reference for this claim if you have one.
Already did. More than once, and once in this thread. The Senate has rules that let them set aside rules by numerical majority. If the filibuster were a real protection to the minority, it could not be set aside by overruling the chair on point of order by numerical majority, as was recorded in the Congressional Record 11/21/2013:
They can also use a numerical majority to tack it to a bill that is exempt from the filibuster, I already cited an example of that. If the filibuster really protected the minority, the rules would not permit the filibuster to be set aside by other procedures requiring only numerical majority.
They have more than one way to do it, but they can always do it when a numerical majority wants to. It follows that when they don’t do it, it’s because a numerical majority does not wish to do it.
NC at 652
“ If the filibuster really protected the minority, they would not allow rules of this type.
They have more than one way to do it, but they can always do it when a numerical majority wants to. It follows that when they don’t do it, it’s because a numerical majority does not wish to do it.”
Yes, the rules of the Senate allow the majority to change or abolish the filibuster for all legislation. What is stopping them is the tradition of the Senate. That was apparently enough that Sinema and Manchin voted with the Republicans to give the majority against stopping the filibuster on these issues. You’re wasting our time here with long posts on semantics.
When Reid used the nuclear option to stop filibusters on circuit court judges to pack the DC circuit. O’Connell said he would live to regret it. Indeed Reid did when the Republicans nuked the filibuster for Supreme Court judges to confirm Kavanaugh.
So what is your point? That the Republicans secretly don’t want to pass budgets? I’m not buying it.
@Bob Wilson:So what is your point?
I addressed this above, more than once, but here it is again:
“Its real purpose is to protect the majority from accountability.”
I’m sure you’re familiar with the role of the Whips?
“…votes in Congress are the negotiated outcome of the legislative process, they are not the legislative process. The real legislative process does not take place in public, and is rarely reported on.”
Remember John Kerry and “I voted for it before I voted against it”? The filibuster lets Senators be on record one way, but actually working for the other way. The Whips arrange with Senators and Congressmen and their leadership what their votes will be.
That the Republicans secretly don’t want to pass budgets?
It’s far from secret, it’s quite public, that’s what we’re commenting on. They want to appropriate, of course they do. They like the continuing resolutions just fine: their friends still get paid, and they duck accountability with the voters. But back to regular order, with all the work and accountability that entails, not so much. Which is why we got Trump and DOGE…
Its a question of whats in the budget, it seems the progs are more often than not happy with these priorities so signing off on these is its own goal