The federal government is in the midst of another partial government shutdown, but this one could be longer lasting than previous shutdowns. Each of these shutdowns is evidence of a failing, inept, incompetent government. It doesn't seem to matter whether Democrats are in charge or Republicans are in charge, whether there is divided government or one-party rule in Washington. From Capitol Hill to sixteen blocks away at the White House, the government can't get the simplest, most important things done, such as passing a comprehensive budget on time.
What might make this shutdown different is the man in the Oval Office. President Trump fancies himself a shrewd businessman and "stable genius." Democrats have a lesser assessment of the president's skills and character.
Trump has said he welcomes a government shutdown (just as he welcomes trade wars). He markets himself as a great negotiator and frequently touts his great breakthroughs in negotiations with foreign leaders, but those breakthroughs have a habit of breaking down once Trump has finished tweeting.
Trump has demanded that Congress approve a budget that includes $5 billion for the wall along the southern border that he promised in his 2016 campaign, leading chants of "Build that Wall!" But Democrats, who offered five times as much for his wall if Trump would only agree to changes in immigration rules and a chance at full citizenship for immigrants who came here as children. Trump, the great negotiator, turned that deal down.
The president's behavior in this and in past talks contradicts his claims of skill as a negotiator. He has failed to deliver in most negotiations, despite his bragging.
Trump's problem likely is rooted in his background. He grew up as the anointed son of a real estate mogul, who started at (or near) the top. He could run the family business according to his own whims. He didn't have to ask advice. He didn't have to answer to anyone. He was the boss, the king, the emperor, the ruler of all he surveyed.
When he negotiated, he could look out only for his own interests. There were no co-equal parties to the negotiations, only subordinates, "losers" in his vocabulary. If he wanted to refuse payments to a subcontractor, he could get away with it. He could offer them low offer or nothing else. It was his way or the highway. If worse came to worst, he could declare bankruptcy and leave the creditors to plead for pennies on the dollar in bankruptcy court.
Trump would like to negotiate the way he did as a private businessman, but he can't. Congress is equally as powerful as the executive branch, and the judicial branch is equal to the other two branches. Trump cannot bully Congress the way he bullied subcontractors. He cannot expend money on his centerpiece border wall without an appropriation from Congress. He will have to learn to negotiate in good faith and to compromise if he wants more end this shutdown.
Showing posts with label government shutdown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government shutdown. Show all posts
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Monday, January 22, 2018
Shutdown is more about politics than budgets
The federal government's shutdown is in its third day today, and the only progress seems to be in the increases in partisan finger-pointing by congressional leaders and the White House. Today's problem is indicative of a much larger, long-range problem with the entire budgeting process, which, as a New York Times article says, is more about partisan sniping than budgeting.
Congress runs into these impasses on a regular basis — annually or more often. The leadership of both parties in Congress appears to be more interested in gaining political advantage than in doing the work they were elected to do. Congress' fundamental responsibility is to pass a budget and appropriate funds for the federal government to operate. In the current environment, this appears to be nearly impossible.
Political leaders and commentators are more interested in which party is winning the public relations battle than in providing the means for carrying out government functions. Major changes too the budgetary process will be needed to prevent the entire legislative process from dissolving into chaos. Changes have been tried before. I was employed by the federal government in Washington in 1974 when Congress extended the 1973-74 fiscal year to 15 months in order to give congressional committees and leaders more time to pass a budget appropriate funds. Instead of having budgeting and appropriations done by July 1, the traditional end of the fiscal year, Congress would have until Oct. 1 to complete the process. That has worked out really well, hasn't it?
Let me offer one simple proposal. Pass a law that cancels the salaries and other payments to all members of Congress any time the budget and appropriations bills are not completed by the beginning of the fiscal year, Oct. 1. I think that motivation might be sufficient to get members of Congress to "do something." The cancellation could even be extended to all elected officials, including the president and vice president, who have assumed roles in the budgetary process.
In the current shutdown, Democrats are hoping voters will rise up against President Trump and his party for opposing a permanent solution for the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) immigrants. Republicans are hoping voters will rise up against Democrats' DACA demands while declining Republicans' agreement on a six-year extension of the popular, bipartisan CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program). Democrats call it the Trump Shutdown. Republicans call it the Schumer Shutdown (after the Senate Minority Leader).
If there is no compromise, it appears to me that Republicans will ultimately gain the advantage. Republicans are offering a long-term deal on CHIP, which, they point out, benefits millions of American citizens, while Democrats are holding out for preferential treatment for less than a million (reportedly) resident non-citizens. The issues are more complicated than that, but most voters will not get into the nuances and will only see the broad outlines. On that basis, the Republicans have the more persuasive argument, as well as the catchier slogan: "Schumer Shutdown."
Congress runs into these impasses on a regular basis — annually or more often. The leadership of both parties in Congress appears to be more interested in gaining political advantage than in doing the work they were elected to do. Congress' fundamental responsibility is to pass a budget and appropriate funds for the federal government to operate. In the current environment, this appears to be nearly impossible.
Political leaders and commentators are more interested in which party is winning the public relations battle than in providing the means for carrying out government functions. Major changes too the budgetary process will be needed to prevent the entire legislative process from dissolving into chaos. Changes have been tried before. I was employed by the federal government in Washington in 1974 when Congress extended the 1973-74 fiscal year to 15 months in order to give congressional committees and leaders more time to pass a budget appropriate funds. Instead of having budgeting and appropriations done by July 1, the traditional end of the fiscal year, Congress would have until Oct. 1 to complete the process. That has worked out really well, hasn't it?
Let me offer one simple proposal. Pass a law that cancels the salaries and other payments to all members of Congress any time the budget and appropriations bills are not completed by the beginning of the fiscal year, Oct. 1. I think that motivation might be sufficient to get members of Congress to "do something." The cancellation could even be extended to all elected officials, including the president and vice president, who have assumed roles in the budgetary process.
In the current shutdown, Democrats are hoping voters will rise up against President Trump and his party for opposing a permanent solution for the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) immigrants. Republicans are hoping voters will rise up against Democrats' DACA demands while declining Republicans' agreement on a six-year extension of the popular, bipartisan CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program). Democrats call it the Trump Shutdown. Republicans call it the Schumer Shutdown (after the Senate Minority Leader).
If there is no compromise, it appears to me that Republicans will ultimately gain the advantage. Republicans are offering a long-term deal on CHIP, which, they point out, benefits millions of American citizens, while Democrats are holding out for preferential treatment for less than a million (reportedly) resident non-citizens. The issues are more complicated than that, but most voters will not get into the nuances and will only see the broad outlines. On that basis, the Republicans have the more persuasive argument, as well as the catchier slogan: "Schumer Shutdown."
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Our dystopian future
Dateline: The not-too-distant future:
It was a stalemate in Congress that initiated the collapse of governing authority, but the basic reasons for the incident goes back further than the unending bickering across party lines in the House and the Senate. Political scientists had already pointed to the computer-based gerrymandering that established uncontested House districts packed reliable voters of one party or the other all across the country. Their safe seats made it easier for these incumbents of either party to push further to the right or left, confident that they couldn't be challenged by an opposition candidate.
And then there was the money in politics and all of the tax-exempt organizations pushing their agendas. It was the nature of these platforms that they grew more and more extreme in an effort to attract attention and followers. They demanded ideological purity and were not afraid to attack their own leaders, should they veer from the extreme policies the organization demanded. As one side ramped up its criticisms, the other side followed suit. These criticisms escalated as the opposing factions' words devolved into personal attacks against their antagonists. Soon, neither side would even consider compromise because compromise came to be viewed as weakness, or even betrayal. Compromise had become a slanderous term.
The sharply divided Congress could not pass a budget, or even a continuing resolution to keep the government afloat, so a partial shutdown led to a broader shutdown with layoffs of thousands of federal workers. The economy began to crumble without the hundreds of billions of dollars of federal salaries and contracts. Restless laid-off federal workers turned bitter and angry. Soon, some of them turned violent. Acts of sabotage against government agencies began. Peaceful protests against the shutdown turned violent, and bank robberies, as well as other forms of thievery, rose suddenly. Understaffed police could not stop or even investigate these crimes, which multiplied exponentially.
Then the debt ceiling impasse forced the United States into default, and the American crisis spread around the world. International trade collapsed because sellers were afraid to accept suddenly suspect American dollars. Banks shuttered their doors, and government deposit insurance in several countries could not meet its obligations. Individuals lost their life savings. Pension funds stopped paying benefits, and Social Security's inflated dollars were not enough to buy food for retirees.
The Constitutional Convention called for by a bipartisan group of senators seemed to be a sensible remedy, but it, too, collapsed into bickering. The group proposing the Constitutional Convention saw it as a way to get the decision-making process away from Congress, which was no longer functioning. The bipartisans proposed just two changes to the 225-plus-year-old Constitution: A clarification that the First Amendment's free speech rights applied to individuals, not to corporations; and a new amendment requiring that congressional districts be drawn by independent bipartisan panels without consideration of incumbents. The thought was that these two changes would eliminate the dominance of political debate by corporations, unions and political action committees, and nonpartisan redistricting would make the U.S. House competitive again, forcing compromises.
It didn't work. The Constitutional Convention was taken over by a secretive group that wrote a new convention eliminating all federal departments except Defense and State and eliminating all of the Bill of Rights except the Second Amendment. The convention also struck the 14th Amendment but retained the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery and the 15th and 19th Amendments granting the right to vote to non-whites and women. It also eliminated the Supreme Court and made federal judgeships elective offices with two-year terms. In the end, the new constitution failed to win ratification by three-fourths of the states, several of whom no longer had a functioning legislature.
By then, much of North America and Europe had become ungoverned with well-armed survivalists ruling small areas and subsistence farmers desperately trying to hold onto the food they had grown for their families against bands of urban marauders roaming rural areas for food and supplies.
It was a stalemate in Congress that initiated the collapse of governing authority, but the basic reasons for the incident goes back further than the unending bickering across party lines in the House and the Senate. Political scientists had already pointed to the computer-based gerrymandering that established uncontested House districts packed reliable voters of one party or the other all across the country. Their safe seats made it easier for these incumbents of either party to push further to the right or left, confident that they couldn't be challenged by an opposition candidate.
And then there was the money in politics and all of the tax-exempt organizations pushing their agendas. It was the nature of these platforms that they grew more and more extreme in an effort to attract attention and followers. They demanded ideological purity and were not afraid to attack their own leaders, should they veer from the extreme policies the organization demanded. As one side ramped up its criticisms, the other side followed suit. These criticisms escalated as the opposing factions' words devolved into personal attacks against their antagonists. Soon, neither side would even consider compromise because compromise came to be viewed as weakness, or even betrayal. Compromise had become a slanderous term.
The sharply divided Congress could not pass a budget, or even a continuing resolution to keep the government afloat, so a partial shutdown led to a broader shutdown with layoffs of thousands of federal workers. The economy began to crumble without the hundreds of billions of dollars of federal salaries and contracts. Restless laid-off federal workers turned bitter and angry. Soon, some of them turned violent. Acts of sabotage against government agencies began. Peaceful protests against the shutdown turned violent, and bank robberies, as well as other forms of thievery, rose suddenly. Understaffed police could not stop or even investigate these crimes, which multiplied exponentially.
Then the debt ceiling impasse forced the United States into default, and the American crisis spread around the world. International trade collapsed because sellers were afraid to accept suddenly suspect American dollars. Banks shuttered their doors, and government deposit insurance in several countries could not meet its obligations. Individuals lost their life savings. Pension funds stopped paying benefits, and Social Security's inflated dollars were not enough to buy food for retirees.
The Constitutional Convention called for by a bipartisan group of senators seemed to be a sensible remedy, but it, too, collapsed into bickering. The group proposing the Constitutional Convention saw it as a way to get the decision-making process away from Congress, which was no longer functioning. The bipartisans proposed just two changes to the 225-plus-year-old Constitution: A clarification that the First Amendment's free speech rights applied to individuals, not to corporations; and a new amendment requiring that congressional districts be drawn by independent bipartisan panels without consideration of incumbents. The thought was that these two changes would eliminate the dominance of political debate by corporations, unions and political action committees, and nonpartisan redistricting would make the U.S. House competitive again, forcing compromises.
It didn't work. The Constitutional Convention was taken over by a secretive group that wrote a new convention eliminating all federal departments except Defense and State and eliminating all of the Bill of Rights except the Second Amendment. The convention also struck the 14th Amendment but retained the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery and the 15th and 19th Amendments granting the right to vote to non-whites and women. It also eliminated the Supreme Court and made federal judgeships elective offices with two-year terms. In the end, the new constitution failed to win ratification by three-fourths of the states, several of whom no longer had a functioning legislature.
By then, much of North America and Europe had become ungoverned with well-armed survivalists ruling small areas and subsistence farmers desperately trying to hold onto the food they had grown for their families against bands of urban marauders roaming rural areas for food and supplies.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
You call that shutting down the government?
Congress can't do anything right. If they're going to shut down the government, then, by golly, shut the whole thing down. Don't piddle around with little barriers around the World War II Memorial and locking the Smithsonian museums. Let's really shut it down.
If the government is out of business or, as the House Administration Committee put it, suffering a "lapse in appropriations," then stop piddling around and really shut it down. For starters:
• Shut down Amtrak and put puncture barriers on every federally funded highway while you're at it.
• Send air traffic controllers home on furlough and shut down every airport in the country.
• Freeze all government grants, no matter how admirable.
• Stop Social Security checks. That's government, too, you know.
• Halt Medicare and Medicaid payments; if patients want treatment, they'll have to beg the doctors.
• Close all military bases, bring all ships in to port and tie them up at the dock, and put every military aircraft in hangars to await orders.
• End inspections at meat processing plants, which would soon shut down every supermarket and grocery store in the country.
• Renege on all federal education grants and loans; let the institutions of higher learning, both for-profit and nonprofit, figure a way to stay afloat.
• Turn off signals from every weather satellite in the sky. See how well the TV weatherman can forecast now.
• Turn off all GPS satellites in orbit. No navigation systems in your car, no locator on your phone, no way to find your way around. See if you can find an old map somewhere.
• Tell farmers across the country they're on their own — no price supports, no land set-asides, no agricultural agents, no crop insurance, no disaster aid. See how long the food lasts.
• Shut down FEMA and see what happens the next time a hurricane, tornado or earthquake hits.
• Stop enforcing regulations involving credit cards, mortgages, safe working conditions, and pay. Tell the people, "You're on your own, folks!"
• Close the Food and Drug Administration and see if people are willing to eat uninspected food or take untested drugs.
If the Republicans in the House of Representatives are willing to shut down the government because they oppose a law that was passed by Congress, signed by the president and approved by the Supreme Court, then, by golly, they should shut the whole thing down. Many of the Tea Party upstarts are simply opposed to government in all its forms and worship the private sector. So if government is so bad, put it out of its misery and see how that works out.
And one last thing: They should halt pay to all members of Congress and all employees of Congress, and they should turn off the electricity to the Capitol and congressional office buildings. Let them negotiate in the dark until they see the light of day.
If the government is out of business or, as the House Administration Committee put it, suffering a "lapse in appropriations," then stop piddling around and really shut it down. For starters:
• Shut down Amtrak and put puncture barriers on every federally funded highway while you're at it.
• Send air traffic controllers home on furlough and shut down every airport in the country.
• Freeze all government grants, no matter how admirable.
• Stop Social Security checks. That's government, too, you know.
• Halt Medicare and Medicaid payments; if patients want treatment, they'll have to beg the doctors.
• Close all military bases, bring all ships in to port and tie them up at the dock, and put every military aircraft in hangars to await orders.
• End inspections at meat processing plants, which would soon shut down every supermarket and grocery store in the country.
• Renege on all federal education grants and loans; let the institutions of higher learning, both for-profit and nonprofit, figure a way to stay afloat.
• Turn off signals from every weather satellite in the sky. See how well the TV weatherman can forecast now.
• Turn off all GPS satellites in orbit. No navigation systems in your car, no locator on your phone, no way to find your way around. See if you can find an old map somewhere.
• Tell farmers across the country they're on their own — no price supports, no land set-asides, no agricultural agents, no crop insurance, no disaster aid. See how long the food lasts.
• Shut down FEMA and see what happens the next time a hurricane, tornado or earthquake hits.
• Stop enforcing regulations involving credit cards, mortgages, safe working conditions, and pay. Tell the people, "You're on your own, folks!"
• Close the Food and Drug Administration and see if people are willing to eat uninspected food or take untested drugs.
If the Republicans in the House of Representatives are willing to shut down the government because they oppose a law that was passed by Congress, signed by the president and approved by the Supreme Court, then, by golly, they should shut the whole thing down. Many of the Tea Party upstarts are simply opposed to government in all its forms and worship the private sector. So if government is so bad, put it out of its misery and see how that works out.
And one last thing: They should halt pay to all members of Congress and all employees of Congress, and they should turn off the electricity to the Capitol and congressional office buildings. Let them negotiate in the dark until they see the light of day.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Government shutdown looms again
In less than 18 hours, as I write this, the federal government is expected to go into partial shutdown. The reason: Congress has not passed a budget for the 2011 fiscal year (that's the one we're now halfway through), and the interim spending resolution is expiring. Democrats and Republicans are blaming each other for the impasse, and it appears that a budgetary dispute will lead to a governmental closure for the first time since the Clinton-Gingrich game of chicken in the 1990s.
The thing to remember about this impasse is that it is not about next year's budget. This dispute is over the current fiscal year budget, which began Oct. 1, 2010. This budget should have been passed last summer and should have been in place before Oct. 1. Once this cat fight is out of the way, which it surely will be sooner or later, Congress faces the much more daunting task of passing the budget for FY2012, which begins Oct. 1.
Passing a budget, one can argue, is the primary, fundamental duty of Congress. But Congress has consistently failed to pass budgets on time. Call it attention deficit disorder on a massive scale. Congress can't seem to concentrate on its primary mission — setting a spending plan for the federal government. This is not a new phenomenon. I was on the federal payroll (as a Coast Guard officer) when the federal government changed from a July-June fiscal year to an October-September fiscal year. That year, we worked with a 15-month fiscal year. The extra three months, we were told at the time, would give Congress the additional time it needed to pass a budget on time. Ha!
Last year, when the FY2011 budget should have been passed, Democrats in control of Congress didn't want to pass a budget that could become a political hot potato in the 2010 elections, so they let government slide through a continuing resolution. That strategy didn't work out too well in November. With Republicans now in charge of the House and holding more votes in the Senate, they are determined to use the overdue budget to win ideological points. The year-round campaigning and 24-hour news cycles (which must be fed with controversy day and night) have made any legislative agreement more difficult. But if Congress cannot agree on how to fund the last six months of this fiscal year, how will our representatives ever find common ground to steer a new fiscal course in 2012?
Both sides, it seems to me, would be better off yielding on FY 2011 and saving their energy for the FY2012 fight. Rep. Paul Ryan has already thrown down the gauntlet with a radically different FY2012 budget plan that would fundamentally change Medicare and Medicaid and sharply reduce federal spending. The fight over Ryan's plan and alternatives yet to be revealed will make tonight's threatened government shutdown seem inconsequential. There is a growing consensus that the federal deficit and debt are much too large and must be trimmed. The fight will be over where and how to cut spending and whether to include some tax increases (or sunsetting of tax cuts), as the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission had proposed, in the budgetary solution. The battle over Ryan's plan or some alternative to it could be the political fight of the decade. Both sides should stockpile some ammunition for that fight and not waste it all on today's interim measure.
The thing to remember about this impasse is that it is not about next year's budget. This dispute is over the current fiscal year budget, which began Oct. 1, 2010. This budget should have been passed last summer and should have been in place before Oct. 1. Once this cat fight is out of the way, which it surely will be sooner or later, Congress faces the much more daunting task of passing the budget for FY2012, which begins Oct. 1.
Passing a budget, one can argue, is the primary, fundamental duty of Congress. But Congress has consistently failed to pass budgets on time. Call it attention deficit disorder on a massive scale. Congress can't seem to concentrate on its primary mission — setting a spending plan for the federal government. This is not a new phenomenon. I was on the federal payroll (as a Coast Guard officer) when the federal government changed from a July-June fiscal year to an October-September fiscal year. That year, we worked with a 15-month fiscal year. The extra three months, we were told at the time, would give Congress the additional time it needed to pass a budget on time. Ha!
Last year, when the FY2011 budget should have been passed, Democrats in control of Congress didn't want to pass a budget that could become a political hot potato in the 2010 elections, so they let government slide through a continuing resolution. That strategy didn't work out too well in November. With Republicans now in charge of the House and holding more votes in the Senate, they are determined to use the overdue budget to win ideological points. The year-round campaigning and 24-hour news cycles (which must be fed with controversy day and night) have made any legislative agreement more difficult. But if Congress cannot agree on how to fund the last six months of this fiscal year, how will our representatives ever find common ground to steer a new fiscal course in 2012?
Both sides, it seems to me, would be better off yielding on FY 2011 and saving their energy for the FY2012 fight. Rep. Paul Ryan has already thrown down the gauntlet with a radically different FY2012 budget plan that would fundamentally change Medicare and Medicaid and sharply reduce federal spending. The fight over Ryan's plan and alternatives yet to be revealed will make tonight's threatened government shutdown seem inconsequential. There is a growing consensus that the federal deficit and debt are much too large and must be trimmed. The fight will be over where and how to cut spending and whether to include some tax increases (or sunsetting of tax cuts), as the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission had proposed, in the budgetary solution. The battle over Ryan's plan or some alternative to it could be the political fight of the decade. Both sides should stockpile some ammunition for that fight and not waste it all on today's interim measure.
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