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Would have been nice if he did this during the CR vote or any one of the atrocious trump appointees. This is isn’t stopping any senate business.
A shutdown from a failed budget would have expedited Project 2025. The President determines who operates during a shutdown, and who returns afterwards. DOGE would keep cutting, ICE would keep deporting, and Trump would keep writing executive orders. When it ended, Trump could refuse to return any hired government employees as his discretion.
Edit: Downvote if you want, but this is important information. The CR was a temporary resolution. There will be another budget vote in September, and they’ll have to decide if a large-scale reduction in workforce is worth the leverage over the budget.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/don-t-use-shutdown-plans-to-slash-the-federal-workforce
This is stupid lie that Schumer was peddling.
Trump could have vetoed the budget and forced a shutdown. If he got more power that way don't you think he would have?
Stop acting like the ten Democrats that didn't get the memo were somehow justified in messing up the nation.
Came here to say this. They're effectively dismantling the government anyway. This is in no way changing the trajectory. In fact government employees who would be impacted by the shutdown and the dismantling were pleading with Schumer to shut it down. Not only that but Trump and Republicans would have owned the shut down because it is on their watch that it would have happened. Additionally, everything they're doing including doge is wildly unpopular so it would have shown the American people that democrats oppose it. But now Democrats just look like they're abetting this dismantling of the federal government and they look spineless, weak, and rudderless. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Also. Lmao. They fucking ended up voting in another Trump nominee.
https://bsky.app/profile/vickyacab.bsky.social/post/3lls5tia67c2a
This was a publicity stunt. Don't donate a single fucking dollar to these wolves in sheep's clothing until they actually fucking do something worth a cent.
Here's the video of these gutless fucking cowards. This kneeling in Dashiki type shit. And it's brutal how many people are on here posting like they're so proud of their senator.
https://bsky.app/profile/katz.theracket.news/post/3llsgxmq7gs2q
https://bsky.app/profile/katz.theracket.news/post/3llsh2tm2ck2q
I do think the blame would have more easily been shifted onto the dems dontya think? Not to mention he wants a shutdown to enact marshal law or whatever
~~That’s what his assistant told me when I demanded an explanation for his dissent. Now I need to confirm if that’s true. I’m going to flip out when I call later if they fucking lied to me!~~
Edit: It appears to be true. A lack of funding would justify large scale reduction in force in accordance with Trump’s Executive Order 14210. I’m still going to ask for details when I call later.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/don-t-use-shutdown-plans-to-slash-the-federal-workforce
Again, if it were so true and advanced Trump's goals, why didn't he veto the CR? Why did he push republicans to vote for it? Why was the Federal Workers Union opposed to it passing?
You edited up above that "it's temporary". No, it isn't. It wasn't a clean CR and it vested a lot more power into the administration to make budget decisions. A shutdown would have been temporary, but it also would have caused a massive shock to the stock market (which is almost certainly the real reason Schumer and crew voted for it).
Why are you calling the propaganda office to get answers? Do you think Schumer's staffers are going to tell you anything other than "This was the absolute most perfect and most bestest thing Schumer could have done!". It's literally their jobs to justify Schumers actions.
This bill supercharged and codified the DOGE actions. Now, instead of having any sort of leverage to stop the Trump admin and Elon from their actions. Instead of strong arming the republicans to actually compromise on SOMETHING in the budget bill. Schumer and crew have given them everything they asked for and they walked away with smiles on their faces. Literally. Republican senators were shocked and delighted it went through.
All but 1 house democrat voted against this. All but 10 senate democrats voted against this. The vast majority of democrats in congress understood that this was a really dumb bill to let through. Stop listening to Schumer propaganda and just think about this. Schumer, as the senate majority leader, went against the will of his party.
You don’t understand what a CR is if you think it’s permanent. A continuing resolution is stopgap funding when a budget reconciliation fails to be passed.
Read the link I provided. It explains how Trump’s existing executive order grants him the ability to refuse return on non-essential employees under three conditions. A lack of funding is one of them.
As for why he didn’t veto, I honestly don’t know. It’s a good question. Maybe he’s trying to win his indiscriminate termination hearings in appeal first? He’ll have another chance in September, since the CR is temporary.
You don't understand how Congress works. A CR isn't used when Budget Reconciliation isn't passed. It's used when spending bills don't pass.
The "normal' (or what's supposed to be normal) process for funding the government is that the Congress passes a Budget, which is a set of funding guidelines, but doesn't actually allocate money. That budget is then used by various committees to write appropriations bills, which is what actually allows the government to spend money. Those spending bills are typically supposed to only cover 1 year, with new appropriations given every year.
Except Congress has been a dysfunctional mess for decades. They rarely actually pass Budget or appropriations bills. That's why we're always under these shutdown threats, because Congress doesn't work as it's supposed to. So when they come down to crunch time and can't pass spending bills, they pass a Continuing Resolution (CR). A CR is an appropriations bill, but instead of using a recent budget as a guideline, the CR just says "continue funding the government at the exact levels it was with these minor adjustments" (usually cutting funding by 2-5% and/or increasing in specific areas, like disaster relief if there was just a hurricane or something).
A CR, just like a normal appropriations bill, funds only to a set level. They don't have a time limit in that they say "funding will stop on X date", but they know how fast the government spends money, so they can predict that $XXX will last YYY days. In that way, they can say "fund $XXX worth" knowing that will expire on a certain date. CRs are just as "permanent" as any appropriations bill
A Budget Reconciliation is a completely different thing. It's a process that allows the Senate to adjust existing spending bills while bypassing the 60 vote threshold for cloture required by the filibuster rules. When the Congress writes a spending bill, they include language within it to say, "this portion of the budget can later be adjusted through reconciliation". The intention is to strip out particularly contentious parts of the larger bill to allow the larger bill to pass while letting Congress then address the stickier issue on its own. So, for example, you don't have to hold up funding national parks just because you can't decide how much to spend on a new military drone program, for example.
However, since Reconciliation allows the majority party to bypass the filibuster, it's use is primarily to pass legislation that the majority knows they can't do through normal legislation (due to the 60 vote threshold the filibuster puts on everything). There are certain rules which I can get into if you want that limit what types of things can be done through reconciliation and how often. But your framing in your comment above about how CRs are supposedly temporary until a Reconciliation Bill is passed is just flat out wrong.
A CR is just a title applied to a bill. This wasn't a CR, it was named a CR. Just calling something a "CR" means nothing. If this were actually a CR the dems in the house and most of the senate dems would not have opposed it.
As for Trump's executive orders, those are just decrees that can be legally challenged. Much like Trump decreeing "The 14th amendment no longer counts" just saying it doesn't make it so.
Again, Even if we take the veto out of the equation, have you thought about why the Federal Workers union was opposed to this "CR"? Why would the union for the workers that would have been most impacted by a shutdown oppose a simple stopgap CR?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/federal-employees-union-tells-congress-132950031.html
False. You need to learn the difference between a continuing resolution and a budget reconciliation bill.
https://www.pgpf.org/article/what-is-a-continuing-resolution/
False, you need to learn what bills are and how they get their titles.
Again, just calling something a CR doesn't make it one. Budget reconciliation bills are different as they get special privileges in the senate (no filibuster). Anything else can be called whatever you like. There's no special law or rule that governs what can and can't be called a CR. That's why this is being referred to by democrats as "a dirty CR".
https://www.coons.senate.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-coons-announces-opposition-to-house-republicans-dirty-cr
Then why does this only fund the government through September, rather than the full calendar?
Quiet simple, because there's a bunch of nutjob republicans that want to cut everything possible yet are willing to settle for temporary stopgap measures. They nearly killed the CR and would have had trump not explicitly pressured them to pass the bill.
Passing a full funding bill would have been harder to get the nutjobs to sign on. Passing a dirty CR with explicit cuts and power grants to the president, however, was enough to win them over.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5178543-house-conservatives-working-toward-cr-after-meeting-with-trump/
Again, the schumer "A shutdown will give trump more power" messaging is a lie. Trump had an active role in getting this bill passed.
So you agree that it’s temporary? Isn’t that the point you challenged?
Again, it is not a lie. EO 14210 provides Trump with the ability to terminate non-essential government employees if any of three conditions are not met, and funding is one of them.
Read it for yourself: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/don-t-use-shutdown-plans-to-slash-the-federal-workforce
FFS I've already covered this while talking about the bill. It had riders ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_(legislation) ) that gave the admin addition discretion over the budget. Those riders are not temporary.
And I already covered EOs if you bothered to read.
You are now purposely being obtuse because you don't want to accept that schumer did something moronic.
He helped the republicans pass a bill that Trump wanted them to pass. End of story.
I understand the riders aren’t temporary, but the budget itself is. That means there will be another chance at a shutdown in September. I don’t need you to explain how this works. I need you to explain why you think it’s a better choice to give Trump the ability to indiscriminately terminate non-essential government employees than to have control of the budget. It’s your opinion that I find elusive, not the facts.
Who do you think has control of the budget? Do you really think that by rolling over and giving Trump everything he wants now Schumer will somehow have control of anything in September?
And why do you think passing the CR will stop Trump and Musk from terminating anyone they want? They're still doing that.
AN EXECUTIVE ORDER IS NOT LEGALLY BINDING.
TRUMP SIGNING ONE DOESN'T MAGICALLY GRANT HIM LEGAL POWER TO INDISCRIMINATELY TERMINATE EMPLOYEES.
Your opinion that an EO is somehow more scary than a bill that grants the powers of the EO to the president is what's entirely insane.
You aren't concerned with facts as you've been corrected not just by me but multiple other people throughout this comment chain. You just want to believe schumer didn't do something stupid.
I wholeheartedly wanted to understand your opinion. I’m no fan of Schumer. Everyone withdrew but him and Gillibrand in the primary, so I didn’t have much of a choice. Regardless, he’s my Senator, and I message and call his office often. I appreciate your point about the EO. At the end of the day, it really is no different than the others being challenged in court. That’s a valid point I’ll be taking up with his office later today. Thank you for taking the time to explain your perspective. Sorry if I frustrated you.
ALL spending bills are "temporary" in that they don't provide unlimited funds for forever. The CR doesn't say, "give as much money as is needed until September." It says "we allocated $XXXX". And since we know how to predict how much money the government spends, we know that amount of money will run out in September.
This is the same way it works if they passed an appropriations bill. The only difference is that they based spending levels on the previous spending bills rather than on a budget bill.
You have no clue what you're talking about, which is demonstrated by your repeated use of the term "budget reconciliation bill" as if it applies to anything here. The budget reconciliation process can only happen after an appropriation bill is passed, which this CR was.
Stop believing anything Schumer says. He is pro whoever supports the most genocide against Palestinians. Democrats have supported it for a while, but Trump definitely wins that comparison by a landslide.
Trump does NOT want a government shutdown. He can't do much without a budget, and it will piss off voters. If he really wanted to shut it all down, he could have refused to sign the budget and forced a shutdown anyway.
So your argument is that it's actually the best decision to just rubber stamp everything the fascists do because trying to oppose it might end up worse? And that if we just rubber stamp everything now, they'll be nicer and not try to make an even worse budget/CR in September?
That's some Neville Chamberlain-level appeasement bullshit right there. "pea
What do you mean “rubber stamp everything?” Sensationalism is very unhelpful to people who prefer to pay attention to the actions of our government.
The dilemma with passing this budget is choosing between giving temporary funding to the corrupt administration, or shutting down non-essential departments allowing Trump to terminate any and all non-essential government employees.
I’m all for criticism of poor choices, but this was a lose/lose. Neither option was good for the nation.
By rubber stamping, in this specific instance, I mean Schumer allowing the CR to pass without extracting any concessions. When the most powerful Democrat in the country, and the only one with power to prevent the CR from passing, just lets it happen, it sends the message that this is business as normal and nothing people need to be overly concerned with.
I agree that a shutdown would have also been bad. But it also would have send the message that Democrats aren't going to be collaborationists. It would have said, "this is a shit sandwich, but it's yours and I want no part of it." Instead, Schumer took a big bite out of that shit sandwich and said, "Democrats and Republicans are in this together."
You said it was a lose/lose? Sure, no argument on that. But let them take the political loss rather than giving the fascists cover, FFS.
There was no leverage to extract concessions from the minority without inducing a shutdown. I just wish they all openly discussed this and voted together. People are more upset by the appearance of dissent than the choice made given the available options.
If you can't extract concessions, then you let them take the loss alone. Instead, Vichy Schumer just agreed to sign the Democrats on as collaborators.
What loss alone? Again, be specific. The alternative was a shutdown.
Yes. Let them take the shutdown and own it. You seem to be operating from the premise that a shutdown would have been popular and had no negative political blowback on the fascists. History does not support this assumption.
Make Trump and Musk go tell people that they don't deserve the services they'd lose from a shutdown. Instead, Schumer said that Democrats agree with all the cuts that were already in the CR.
This isn’t a popularity contest. Handing Trump the ability to indiscriminately terminate non-essential government employees under EO 14210 would expedite Project 2025. It was a lose/lose situation.
Why are you pretending like they're not doing that anyways? There are people right now lined up outside NIH and HHS buildings because DOGE has shut them out and is firing them. The last of the USAID workers lost their jobs yesterday. Yet you're here pretending like allowing the CR to pass prevented people from losing their jobs? Brother, you've been duped into being a collaborationist!
Those terminations are either of probationary employees (less than two years in role), or are currently being challenged by the courts. Project 2025 outlines a complete replacement of all hired federal employees with loyalists.
So you are admitting that passing the CR did nothing to protect these jobs you seem so concerned for? Then why are you arguing so fervently in favor of Vichy collaborationists?
I’m not. I’m saying it was a lose/lose. People who make it seem like leverage don’t understand the effects of a shutdown and how the EO would allow Trump to complete that massive step in no time.
I’m not a fan of Schumer, or any centrists for that matter. Every candidate besides Schumer and Gillibrand dropped out before the primary. I’m hoping AOC runs a NY Senate bid in 2028 so we can finally get the deadwood out.
Right, it was lose/lose. Either way bad things are going to happen. So why sign on to participate and take ownership of it? What does anyone gain by that.
The situation would not be worse under a shutdown. It would just be a different type of bad. Trump and Musk are still firing anyone they want without regard to the law or courts. They're still gutting funding wherever they want.
The ONLY difference between passing this CR and not is that the Vichy Democrats put their stamp of approval on what's happening now.
The alternative would be a much faster replacement of the non-essential workforce. I’m not defending it. I’m stating Schumer’s reasoning because I’m sick of people painting it as if we somehow had full control of a situation and gave it away. It’s just not that simple.
I'm not claiming the Democrats had full control of anything. And no, a shut down would not have been much faster. It would have been more chaotic, but not faster. And maybe the chaos would have helped get more people into the streets resisting. I don't know.
But I do know that capitulating to fascists is never a good strategy. There has never once been a situation where capitulating to fascists has resulted in a better outcome. Schumer got played. You got played.
Fwiw I'm with you on this.
A great write up on the situation: https://open.substack.com/pub/joshbarro/p/it-is-not-chuck-schumers-job-to-satisfy?r=2ws72
Thanks! That was a well written breakdown for sure. The irony is I really dislike Schumer. Everyone else dropped out of the primary, so he was mo only option. I’m even less fond of defending a moderate standpoint, but I’ll advocate for fact over opinion, and this was simply not the leverage people make it out to be.
I hear you. I feel the anger and the frustration too. It feels like acquiescing. We want to fight every battle so much that we see a battle in places where there is none, where instead we have to be pragmatic.
It was still a self-inflicted wound for him to reverse his vote late. It made it FEEL like they were acquiescing.
Exactly right. He should have been more compelling with his peers over the dangers of a shutdown. The dissent just gave people the impression of weakness.