(Bloomberg) - House Speaker Kevin McCarthy proposed a deal to temporarily avert a US government shutdown, with demands including an 8% spending cut for domestic agencies and a resumption of border wall construction.
As an outsider, the combination of this and the Republicans’ contrived attempt to impeach Biden really serve to illustrate the knife-edge on which the US political system seems to have been built.
In countries that use a parliamentary system, the ability to get a budget through parliament is pretty much synonymous with executive power - a government that can’t pass its budget resigns and then either somebody else attempts to form a government or, failing that, new elections are held. The US however operates a presidential system but leaves the budget to its parliament. That’s an arrangement that can only be sustainable if the parliament is either under the control of politicians who are aligned with the president’s agenda, or if there is a political culture and set of norms that values cooperation and the national interest over partisanship.
It’s impressive that the US system has lasted as long as it has, but it’s abundantly clear that the Republicans in Congress are no longer a party that can cooperate with their opponents in the national interest - those norms no longer exist, and they seem not to have existed for some time now. In such circumstances, I don’t see how a presidential system can be sustainable in the long-term.
It truly is a deeply flawed system.
The problems, I think, start with the fact the entire thing was built on compromises with the slave states in the South who basically wanted a guarantee they could veto something they didn’t like - even if they didn’t have a majority.
How the US Founding Fathers failed to consider this type of extreme partisanship would grind the US to a halt is also somewhat baffling. George Washington even warned of the dangers of political parties in his farewell address, and he was clearly aware that partisanship would be a huge issue. Yet the system they put in place is poorly equipped to deal with it.
It really feels like almost everything wrong with the system stems from those concessions made at the nation’s founding. But I don’t see how any changes will be made. A parliamentary system would be much better, especially from a budget perspective.
There is a paywall, so here is the article content:
Story by Erik Wasson and Billy House
(Bloomberg) – House Speaker Kevin McCarthy proposed a deal to temporarily avert a US government shutdown, with demands including an 8% spending cut for domestic agencies and a resumption of border wall construction.
McCarthy presented the plan to Republican lawmakers in a conference call Sunday evening after negotiators representing key factions within the House GOP settled on the demands to temporarily fund the government for 31 days. A House vote on the measure is planned for Thursday.
The demands, which also include provisions curtailing the ability of migrants to claim asylum in the US, are anathema to most Democrats and aren’t likely to be accepted by the Democratic-led Senate. That means the bill doesn’t reduce the risk of a shutdown.
The bill also doesn’t contain emergency Ukraine war funds or disaster aid including relief for victims of Maui wildfires and a Florida hurricane requested by President Joe Biden’s administration.
McCarthy immediately faced opposition from some GOP ultra-conservatives that could doom the plan. Six hard-right lawmakers quickly announced their opposition. McCarthy can only afford to lose four Republicans, without Democratic support.
But if McCarthy and the plan’s authors can unite Republicans behind the strategy, it would clear the way for the House to vote on a proposal for temporary funding. Efforts to pass funding measures have ground to a halt in the House amid clashes between GOP hardliners and moderates.
McCarthy became so frustrated with hardliners’ opposition to any spending measures that he dared them at a meeting on Thursday to try to oust him from his leadership position.
The new proposal followed days of talks between leaders of two key Republican factions. Representatives Byron Donalds, a negotiator for the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, and Dusty Johnson, leader of the more moderate Main Street Partnership, presented the plan in the conference call.
Still, the plan quickly ran into objections from the hard right that jeopardize its chances in the House.
Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the GOP proposal was “extreme” and “would cut funding to the National Institutes of Health including funding for cancer research, defund the police, and decrease resources to important allies like Ukraine and Israel.”
Earlier Sunday, McCarthy said he hoped to avert a shutdown because it would undermine Republicans’ leverage in negotiations over federal spending.
“I want to make sure we don’t shut down,” McCarthy said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “I don’t think that is a win for the American public and I definitely believe it’ll make our hand weaker if we shut down.”
Fuck you #GOP.
You’ll abide by the existing agreement, or you’ll shut down the government. Those are your options.
what a highly credible and excellent suggestion from the guy totally not facing open rebellion from his center and right flanks
