December 19, 2024 02:02 PM UTC

Government Nears Shutdown on Demands from (Not) President Elon Musk

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• by: Colorado Pols

As The Washington Post reports, Christmas coal is on the horizon for hundreds of thousands of Americans whose livelihoods are at risk because of a looming government shutdown demanded by an unelected billionaire pulling the strings of an overmatched Speaker of the House:

The federal government is careening toward a weekend government shutdown deadline as congressional Republicans, egged on by President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk, feud over legislation to keep agencies open over the Christmas holiday.

Republicans on Wednesday rejected a plan by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) for a three-month stopgap funding extension, called a continuing resolution or CR, with more than $100 billion in aid for natural disaster survivors, bipartisan health-care policy changes and other unrelated provisions.

Negotiations were ongoing in Johnson’s Capitol Hill office Thursday afternoon, where signs of life for a new bill that could appease Trump and the GOP conference appeared to be emerging, multiple lawmakers and aides said. Any legislation to prevent a government shutdown will also likely need Democratic votes in both the House and Senate.

“There’s a pulse, but you need a stethoscope for it,” a Republican aide familiar with the conversations said. [Pols emphasis]

This isn’t working out well for anyone. Farm-belt Republicans are furious that needed farm subsidies are being left on the cutting room floor. House Speaker Mike Johnson may soon be out of a gavel as a result of his fumbling on funding:

In scrapping Johnson’s plan, Republicans cast doubt on his ability to maintain the speaker’s gavel in next year’s Congress. Johnson must run for the position again when the new House is sworn in on Jan. 3, and enough GOP lawmakers to deny him the position have already declared they won’t support him, according to two members, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Republicans in Congress are clearly doing the bidding of billionaire Elon Musk, who was tasked by President-elect Donald Trump (along with Vivek Ramaswamy) with finding ways to significantly cut the federal budget through their dorky “DOGE Caucus.” Musk basically singlehandedly destroyed a Continuing Resolution that would have kept the government funded until March by repeatedly posting his demands to “Kill the Bill” (and find Primary opponents for any Republicans who disagree) — all via his social media website:

Plenty of Republicans in the House are willing to follow along so as to curry favor with Not President Musk…including Colorado’s own sycophantic Congressperson Lauren Boebert:

If you say you don’t want the clout but do a thing for the clout, does it still count?

As Liz Goodwin reports separately for the Post, Senate Republicans are perplexed. In fairness, this is their default response to most issues, but still:

GOP senators emerged from a lunch with Vice President-elect JD Vance without a clear idea of how they would get through the funding impasse. “Truly I don’t know what’s going on,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). [Pols emphasis] Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said there’s a “search for a solution” on the House side but it’s unclear what it is. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) said Vance made clear President-elect Donald Trump is committed to getting a debt ceiling increase as part of the package. “There is not a single clear path for us to get through. But we’re talking about a lot of different ideas,” Mullin said.

One of the problems in the Senate is that many Republicans are fundamentally opposed to Trump’s separate demand that a Continuing Resolution (CR) also include a mechanism for surpassing the debt limit. You can’t cut taxes for millionaires without it. As Goodwin notes:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) emerged from the private GOP lunch and said lifting the debt ceiling, as President-elect Donald Trump has called for, is a “non starter” in the House. “I won’t vote for that and can they get Democrats to vote for it?” Paul said.

As NBC News reports, House Republicans claim to have found a solution this afternoon…though it doesn’t actually seem like it:

House Republicans on Thursday appeared to have finessed a second spending agreement to avoid a looming government shutdown, just hours after the original bipartisan agreement was torpedoed by President-elect Donald Trump.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., told reporters Thursday afternoon that Republicans had reached a new agreement on government spending but provided few details about what would be changed from the initial sweeping package that had included everything from government funding to changes to prescription drug plans to facilitating the relocation of an NFL football stadium…

…Democrats were not part of the renegotiated deal and haven’t yet signed off, according to two sources with knowledge of the negotiations. [Pols emphasis]

That last part is a problem. Though House Republicans have the majority, they almost certainly need Democratic votes to pass a CR because enough hard-headed morons (see: Boebert, Lauren) will never budge on reality.

If Congressional Republicans can’t get their shit together, a federal government shutdown will begin at 12:01 am on Saturday, Dec. 21. CBS News has more on how this would negatively impact hundreds of thousands of Americans just days before the Holiday Season.