What is this potential shutdown about?
The last two shutdowns that lasted beyond a Saturday night were about isolated but potent policy issues: building a wall along the Mexican border, or repealing ObamaCare.
This time it is difficult to figure out what the disagreements are about, because the disagreements are not only between the two major parties but within the Republican party.
Best as I can tell, these are some of the areas of disagreement that are blocking Congress from passing a timely short-term budget:
(1) Whether to continue funding Ukraine in its war with Russia -- roughly half of Republicans oppose additional funding
(2) Whether to cut non-defense, non-retiree spending by a large fraction, such as 30%, to reduce the budget deficit (this would require layoffs by most federal agencies)
(3) Whether to restrict immigration, perhaps by ending the offer of asylum to the world's oppressed and/or building a wall and/or spending more on Border Patrol and/or reducing the number of work visas, etc.
(4) Whether to reform the budget process, by ending the practice of passing short-term budgets until a single "omnibus" "annual" bipartisan budget bill has been agreed to
It's a lot of things all at once, which makes the process messier than usual, especially with such tight margins in both House and Senate.
Probably the most important sticking point right now is (4), because there's no bipartisan majority in favor of a "clean" short-term budget that simply extends spending at last year's rate, with no additional lump sums for Ukraine, Border Patrol, or disaster relief.
Well, we federal workers have prepared ourselves for a shutdown come Monday morning. It is up to Congress to work out whether we'll actually have to do that, and if so for how long. It would be easy, thinks Bug, to simply pass a clean two-week budget extension so we can keep working while Congress argues. But I read this morning that Congress can't even agreee on that.
This time it is difficult to figure out what the disagreements are about, because the disagreements are not only between the two major parties but within the Republican party.
Best as I can tell, these are some of the areas of disagreement that are blocking Congress from passing a timely short-term budget:
(1) Whether to continue funding Ukraine in its war with Russia -- roughly half of Republicans oppose additional funding
(2) Whether to cut non-defense, non-retiree spending by a large fraction, such as 30%, to reduce the budget deficit (this would require layoffs by most federal agencies)
(3) Whether to restrict immigration, perhaps by ending the offer of asylum to the world's oppressed and/or building a wall and/or spending more on Border Patrol and/or reducing the number of work visas, etc.
(4) Whether to reform the budget process, by ending the practice of passing short-term budgets until a single "omnibus" "annual" bipartisan budget bill has been agreed to
It's a lot of things all at once, which makes the process messier than usual, especially with such tight margins in both House and Senate.
Probably the most important sticking point right now is (4), because there's no bipartisan majority in favor of a "clean" short-term budget that simply extends spending at last year's rate, with no additional lump sums for Ukraine, Border Patrol, or disaster relief.
Well, we federal workers have prepared ourselves for a shutdown come Monday morning. It is up to Congress to work out whether we'll actually have to do that, and if so for how long. It would be easy, thinks Bug, to simply pass a clean two-week budget extension so we can keep working while Congress argues. But I read this morning that Congress can't even agreee on that.