Well, voters of America, congratulations. You wanted chaos? You got it.
In spades. And the game hasn’t even started yet.
Congress has, once again, bumped up against the deadline to provide the necessary funds to keep the federal government bumbling along. And, again, the House is encountering obstacles to fulfilling its primary purpose of allocating the money to keep the nation humming.
Two proposals up. Two proposals down. And a governmental shutdown looming around the bend.
A bipartisan package to meet the deadline got nixed by conservative House Republicans on Wednesday, even though the party controls the lower chamber and the plan, to extend funding into March, was developed by GOP leadership. It never came up for a vote. That left lawmakers without a plan B, creating the possibility that the government will temporarily cease operations for the fourth time in 11 years.
Republican leaders ultimately scotched tape together a second plan. It sank like a rock on Thursday night, failing in a 174-235 vote.
Of course, president-elect Donald J. Trump had his grimy meathooks in on the mishigas, putting the kibosh on that initial proposal, aided by his new right-hand man, billionaire electric car magnate Elon Musk, who has even suggested that the government just go ahead and shut its doors until the Trump inauguration on Jan. 20.
Trump then endorsed the alternative to carry funding into March. That package met its fate in a 174-235 vote with 38 Republicans joining all but two Democrats to tell the GOP demigod to take a hike.
So, there we have it. Don’t say you didn’t realize this durcheinander wasn’t going to occur with the Lord of Mar-a-Lago calling the shots. History isn’t on your side.
Heck, wait until the boy actually assumes office.
What’s more, amid the eternal turmoil you’ll find the Kentucky Rover Boys – Rep. Thomas Massie, R-SomewhereorotherLewisCounty, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green — who bring years of experience to making bad situations worse.
Massie this week became the first congressional Republican to announce he will oppose the return of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, to the chair when the 119th Congress convenes in January, citing various sins, including the dismal and ultimately failed effort to push through not one but two spending packages.
“I’ll vote for somebody else,” Massie told Politico. “I’ve got a few in mind. I’m not going to say yet.”
That vow should come as no surprise. Massie was one of three Republicans who sought to oust Johnson a few months back. Throughout his 12-year tenure in the lower chamber Massie has made the lives of Republican speakers a living hell, helping to push now retired lawmakers John Boehner, of Ohio, and Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, to the side of the road because he disagreed with the way they handled spending matters. Massie has never been enamored of Johnson and, should he succeed in giving the speaker the heave-ho — and there’s a growing belief he will — Johnson will simply become just another notch in Massie’s belt.
Backing Massie’s play, unexpectedly, is Paul, who has chosen to stick his nose into the goings-on in the lower chamber without invitation, even suggesting a replacement for Johnson in the speaker’s chair – Elon Musk.
Yes, you heard it right, THAT Elon Musk.
“The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress,” Paul said in a post on X, the social media owned by, you’re right again, Elon Musk. “. . . Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).”
Lord knows watching members of the uniparty lose their ever-loving minds is infinitely more important than funding the federal government.
But I digress.
This never-ending debate over federal spending is, as Oliver Hardy so elegantly put it, “another fine mess.” It involves a lot of moving parts. Yet this schlamassel is just the beginning of what promises to be a chaotic, four-year tour-de-force for the federal government.
So get used to it.
Massie and Paul are not altogether wrong. For one thing, Johnson has proved to be an incompetent doofus since he was handed the gavel in October. Congressional operations are out of control for a number of reasons, primarily as a result of making compromise a dirty word. Congress has botched the budget-making process so spectacularly time and time again that, inevitably, a fiscal crisis was bound to hit.
The current 118th Congress failed to adopt the 13 appropriations measures by the beginning of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. It was therefore forced yet again, amid massive hemming and hawing, to adopt a continuing resolution funding the federal government through Dec. 20, thinking that, by some miracle, a resolution would work itself out.
Fat chance.
Faced with yet another funding deadline, Johnson this week coughed up another continuing resolution that would extend operations into March. It maintained funding at current levels but included several additional provisions to sweeten the pot – disaster funding, much of which would be directed at hurricane-ravaged North Carolina, a farm bill and money to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which collapsed earlier this year after being struck by a ship.
The additions were included to gain Democratic support, necessary, Johnson said, to ease passage in the closely divided chamber. It was Republicans who ultimately balked, with conservatives calling for a “clean” continuing resolution, with no riders, to keep spending under control. That anti campaign was led, ironically, by Musk, a newly minted Trump confidant, who called the proposal “criminal” and suggested that lawmakers shut down the government until Trump dons the crown a month down the road.
“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Musk, the world’s richest man, posted on X.
Musk is Trump’s choice, along with former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead an organization outside the bounds of government, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump’s idea to restructure the federal government and reduce costs. Subsequently, Trump himself joined the chorus opposing the package.
The second effort, which likewise went down in flames, carried the Trump imprimatur and included a provision to suspend the nation’s debt ceiling, which suppresses governmental borrowing ability, until January 2027 in order to ease passage of his planned tax cuts, which will add to the nation’s $36 trillion debt, thus requiring additional loans above said limit Democrats, knowing a con job when they see one, said no thanks and the alternative hit the skids.
At any rate, Johnson was left holding the bag. The bag got heavier Thursday night.
While Massie, in declaring his disinfatuation with Johnson, refused to identify a potential successor, it wouldn’t be stretching credulity to speculate that he’d be giddy as a schoolgirl with Musk as the next speaker, since Paul, who thinks along the same libertarian lines, broached the idea. He has already offered to lend a helping hand to the proposed government efficiency effort.
This whole mélange is the preview for what awaits America. The federal government has never been a model of efficiency and there’s no reason to believe it will quit lumbering around like a moose in the wild. But, as the current circumstance reveals, it might very well prove to be even more ineffective as it waits for edicts to be delivered from King Donald and Prince Elon.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, on a glidepath out as Senate Republican leader, advised CNN this week about what the public can look forward to.
“Oh, this is the way it’s going to be next year,” Mitch said.
Maybe, just maybe if your beloved Democrats would tighten their belt a notch this could be avoided!! If congress would do the fobs the are elected to do and reach a budget before the deadline this could be avoided. The government needs to start running as a business and not a charity funded by taxpayers. I mean just as excited as the next person to have pork pouring into my state but it must stop. And it won’t as long as liberals can find a way to spend someone else’s money it will continue. Not to mention a raise they want for doing nothing. Apparently Washington, like you don’t get the message. Enough wasted spending is too much.