Shutdown theater: do the Democrats think voters have no memory?
If so, maybe they’re correct. Maybe a lot of voters either don’t remember, or weren’t paying attention back then, or aren’t paying attention now, or some combination of those things.
But it strikes me that a great many people – even Democrats – might remember how bitterly the Democrats in Congress railed against previous shutdowns, with apocalyptic predictions, when they were the majority and Republicans the minority. And now the Congressional Democrats are acting like this shutodwn is necessary – and for what? Because continuing the Biden levels is so terrible?
It makes no sense, but politics often makes no sense – or is driven by other factors hidden by the walls of the sausage factory.
Of course, the Republicans could end the 60-vote threshold and make it a simple majority vote. Why don’t they? Perhaps they can’t get 51 to agree that would be a good step. Perhaps they think it sets a bad precedent – although I have little doubt the Democrats would do it if they had the majority and thought it was in their interests. Maybe the Republicans want a shutdown, perhaps to allow Trump to perform some layoffs, or perhaps they wish to highlight Democrat hypocrisy on the shutdown issue.
At any rate, here’s some information on what services are affected.
This is so, so tiresome and old.
I haven’t followed this closely, but apparently the OMB director is planning to fire a number of people now that the government is shut down.
That would be fitting. The stupid move by the Dems in Congress costs a big number of their voters their jobs. I hope this happens.
I think from the Dem side what makes the most sense is that their base “requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part”. Their individual Senate seats may be at risk from primary challenges otherwise and they can’t stuff the pork barrel if they aren’t in office.
I suspect that from the GOP side, they don’t mind if they think the Dems will be holding the bag and then whatever compromise they come up to end the shutdown they can lard up with pork as usual. The national debt is Future Congress’s problem, and they can’t get any votes now from people in the future, so who cares?
But to neo’s question, no the voters have no memory. Pretty much everyone seems to live in a time horizon of about two weeks.
My feeling is that the entire Democrat party exists to dig its snout deeper and deeper into the public money trough. They have a commitment to grow the federal budget every year. Just holding it static is unacceptable to them. Heck, the current CPI inflation rate is around 2.5% to 2.7%. Static is actually a slow decline in real dollars.
_______
I think from the Dem side what makes the most sense is that their base “requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part”. — Niketas
Well put! I don’t really know the full history of my following point, which is that this attitude by many in the Dem base is the result of years of “agit-prop.” Agitation propaganda. They are agitated all right!
The really sad, nay disgusting, part of this theater is that they are squabbling over yet another continuing resolution, and no one seems to even notice.
I am so old that I can almost remember the last time the nation actually had a budget–you know, like the one that the law requires.
A 2.5% reduction would be very nice. A 25% budget cut in just 10 years!
As we know, SS, Medicare, and Medicaid are the primary entitlement costs in the budget, so anything that delays addressing them is just postponing and exacerbating the $37T+ debt (and the $150T-$200T long term liabilities). Most of the personnel reduction and other cost cuts are welcome, but are small potatoes in the larger picture.
I am kind of surprised Rand Paul or someone on the deficit/debt hawk side has not pushed the generational theft issue in an attempt to get more younger people on board with more drastic cuts and conversions to responsible IRA type personal accounts (not government owned even if government regulated) for retirement, healthcare, education, and perhaps housing purchases, etc.
The Republicans floated a trial plan to fix Social Security back in the early 2000s, IIRC, and the media and Democrats acted like the Republicans were going door to door throwing grannies into the streets.
I can’t see it working any better now.
The Republicans floated a trial plan to fix Social Security back in the early 2000s,
==
IIRC, that involved private accounts, which are not necessary to repair Social Security.
==
A repaired Social Security and Medicare would (1) have amended procedures for awarding and reviewing the award of Disability benefits; (2) stop awarding Disability benefits to people for ‘anxiety disorders’ and ‘mood disorders’; (3) institute cohort-specific retirement ages which float during the course of one’s work life and then freeze when one reaches age 55 – rates calculated such that the ratio of the beneficiary population to the working population bounces around a set point and (4) adjust deductibles on Medicare each year so the ratio of Medicare expenditure to employee compensation bounces around a set point.
==
Over many decades, politicians have generally assumed that demagogy by characters like Tip O’Neill and upChuck Schumer suffices to persuade a critical mass of anxious but innumerate voters to take revenge on Republicans.
Byron York, at the Washington Examiner, on what this shutdown fight is really about. It’s Democrats’ insistence on keeping “emergency” Obamacare subsidies:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/3833525/shutdown-fight-critical-moment-in-the-expansion-of-the-government/
The Dems are used to the media having their back, hence they have been able to take advantage of shutdowns.
The loss of trust in corporate media is making this much less of an advantage. And Trump can talk directly to the people.
I think Senate Republicans are just being weak like usual.
@R2L:and the $150T-$200T long term liabilities
If the government were a private corporation, these would be long term liabilities, but it’s a sovereign with not only the power to tax but the power to alter the obligation unilaterally at any time and the power to conjure money out of thin air. Describing the entitlements as a “long term liability” is a characterization I used to accept without ever thinking much about, but it is a false characterization as it turns out. Social Security and Medicare have always paid today’s obligations with today’s taxes, according to what the law happens to say today.
A more real problem with these entitlements is that the share of present working people vs the share of recipients is decreasing. There’s currently about 3-4 people working to support every retiree, and getting lower every year as the population ages. It does not matter how “funded” the entitlements are if there are not enough working people to support the retirees. Fully funded entitlements won’t mean anything when it’s 1-1 working vs retiree: there won’t be enough economic production for the entitlement money to buy to meet the needs of the non-working.
Back-of-the-envelope estimate for a “reasonable” government budget. 2000 was not exactly a lean and mean Federal government, and people were not dying in the streets for lack of services.
Start with the year 2000 Federal expenditures: $1.789 T
Remove year 2000 SS, Medicare, interest on debt: $0.961 T
Adjust 2000 dollars to 2024 CPI: 1.81 x $0.961 T = $1.739 T
Divide by year 2000 US population: $1.739 T / 281.4 M people = $6,181 per capita
Multiply by 2024 US population: $6,181 per capita x 340.1 M people = $2.102 T
Add in 2024 SS, Medicare, interest on debt: $2.102 T + $1.50 T (SS) + $0.865 T (Medicare) + $0.881 T (interest) = $5.3 T
The actual 2024 expenditures were: $6.752 trillion. There is something like $1.5 T that could be cut in the very simple manner I have described. It’s “marbled” fat, not easy necessarily to cut specific items to reach the total, but every number in the budget outside of SS, Medicare, and interest could be multiplied by a ratio, which is about 60%, using the technique I described and $1.5 T in savings would immediately ensue, and it would be approximately right, because it would account for the growth in population and the change in the value of money.
Some things would be cut too much, and some things too little, and maybe there’s some things that didn’t exist in 2000 that we need to throw a couple hundred billion at, but it would not be a disaster for the country–except to the people who are used to getting the government checks, of course.
Could be a one-sentence bill. Never will be. But this is the standard by which we should judge whatever Congress comes up with.
NC, thank you for your clarifications.
Adjusting for population growth and inflation is needed to keep the correct perspective.
I wonder how much of that 2024 population is illegal aliens? 5 to 10%?
And the DOGE discoveries of NGO slush funding, etc., added to Obama’s CR magic, Trump’s COVID “help”, augmented even more under “Biden” or his autopen coterie, probably all help explain some of that marbled fat.
I figured (per DOGE) that fraud, waste, and abuse was in the range of $30B to $80B, as estimated by the Republican “experts”, and thus present but not a significant game changer. Now we see it was a massive set of political IEDs laid out for us the whole time.
That $150T to $200T number came from something I read years ago by Larry Kotlikoff, although I never understood what was the rationale for a 75 year span for a net present value calculation. He has been raising that alarm for many years, apparently without making much headway in improved understanding by the people. But as you said, people also live in a time zone of two weeks, or month to month paychecks and how much something costs them per month.
@R2L:That $150T to $200T number came from something I read years ago by Larry Kotlikoff, although I never understood what was the rationale for a 75 year span for a net present value calculation.
More than one guy doing that. They are trying to get people to treat SS and Medicare like it’s a private pension. A pension from an employer is a contractual obligation, and an unfunded liability is a serious issue for the viability of the business. But SS and Medicare are not. The government has no contractual obligation whatever to pay those, see Fleming vs Nestor (1960):
As for the 75-year horizon, if you are familiar with the math of annuities, adding or taking away a few more years doesn’t really do much to the answer provided the number of years you picked is large relative to the interest or discount rate. You can use infinite years and in fact there have been annuities that when set up were to pay “forever”, and in fact did pay for hundreds of years. The calculation would have given about the same answer at 70 years as it would at 150.