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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Kevin McCarthy bit the bullet and told the Fracas Caucus to bring it on. He was human enough to choose to keep the country running rather than siding with the malcontents empowered by the president-past who are pulling the Republican Party into anarchy and potentially destroying future quality of life for many Americans.
Who knows what is going to happen before November 17th when this band-aid bill runs out.
Another ho-hum from the American taxpayer?
This isn’t a spending bill that will see the country through until the next election; it isn’t even a 12-month budget allocation of the kind that Los Angeles embraces every June. It’s a 45 day stop-gap which ends six days before Thanksgiving.
This “Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024” just buys the crazies in Congress enough time to take half a breath before they start squalling again.
It enumerates what can be spent in fine-print detail over 71 pages but breaks no new ground, solves no-one’s problems. It extends what was wrangled a year ago under Democrat control but could not build on those meager beginnings so reflects a net loss for large numbers of Americans who see prices persist in rising while the pandemic safety net is ripped away.
Leaders need to inspire people with a passion for renewing America, talk about rebuilding the country in ways that are truly important, and put the money where their mouths, and Americans’ needs are.
Not nit-picking over people’s personal decisions but addressing the hard choices of how to reverse climate change, abate poverty, expand healthcare and improve education. And make the world a safer place.
There is very little time, and the MAGA / Trump follies provide endless distractions and imminent danger.
Is this another reason that America needs a new Amendment?
Perhaps one that requires all voters to pass a basic test on American civics and governance. The kind all immigrants pass to become citizens so they can vote.
One that mandates that all candidates for elected office pass a more rigorous version. Not a means test to show they don’t have to accept the first bribe that is offered them, and heaven forbid any kind of affirmative action in this day and age.
Just a simple test evaluating the cognitive knowledge that will be required if they take office, one with an emphasis on analytical abilities, common sense and… decency.
Hard-right Republicans refused to support the stopgap bill because it essentially maintained funding at levels set when Congress was under Democratic control last year. Some had threatened to oust McCarthy from the speakership if he made a deal with the Democrats.
The American people can breathe a sigh of relief: There will be no government shutdown,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader. “After trying to take our government hostage, MAGA Republicans won nothing.”
The 12 year-long spending bills the hard right were working on when they took time out to subvert the country’s spending by sulking as refusniks to the Speaker’s resolution for continued funding are instructive on where they hope to wag the dog by December.
They want to slash non-defense discretionary spending excluding Pentagon funding and the so far mandatory programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by $58 billion.
This is a larger amount that agreed to by Biden and McCarthy last May when the debt limit crisis was averted and would come down on some programs with a heavier hand than others.
Furthermore, the bills on which the House Republicans have made the most progress are ones that would grow the deficit: their military construction and veterans affairs bill would see increased spending of almost five percent over the previous fiscal year, their homeland security bill would raise spending by almost four percent, and their defense bill by more than two percent.
The State Department and foreign operations bill (which actually serves to protect Americans and American interests around the world) would be gutted by a 15 percent cut, even though the United States already spend too little in this area.
Twenty-five percent of the House Republicans’ projected savings would come from eviscerating funding for low-income schools (Title I education grants) by 80 percent, potentially putting the jobs of over 200,000 teachers on the chopping block.
Senator John Fetterman posted to social media. "Pushing the snooze button solves nothing, because these same losers will try to pull the same shit in 45 days." He went on to oppose normalizing dysfunction and turning the House on the Hill into a really bad tabloid talk show.
McCarthy recognized that the legislation might spark a challenge to his job, but said he was willing to risk it to keep the government open. Indeed, shortly after the stop-gap budget passed in Congress, Matt Gaetz vowed to file a motion to remove the Speaker.
In the words of the popular meme: When we elect clowns, we get a circus.
Not governance by grownups, not the leadership by responsible and accountable politicians that America deserves.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
