Democrats in Washington have softened their early opposition to the Republicans’ tiered approach to government spending, signaling a new openness to supporting the House GOP bill and averting a government shutdown at week’s end.
In a Monday letter to House Democrats, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and his top deputies suggested that Democrats may support the Republicans’ short-term funding bill to keep the government open into early next year — a sharp change of tone that could pave the way for easy passage when the bill hits the chamber floor on Tuesday.
Joined by Reps. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), Jeffries stopped short of saying party leaders are ready to endorse the GOP proposal, known as a continuing resolution (CR), which was introduced by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) over the weekend.
But he also didn’t rule it out.
And just like that, any shutdown is no longer the fault of Republicans being unable to control their own caucus.
We’re expected to vote with Republicans, but never the other way around.
Democrats are expected to vote with Republicans when it’s in their own interest. That’s the whole point of bipartisanship.
Avoiding a shutdown is in their own interest. The CR proposed by Johnson is unconventional but does not significantly conflict with Democratic goals.
So none of this significantly conflicts with democrat goals?
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Making it legal for companies to discriminate based on abortion care
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Removal of funds from the IRS
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Medicare spending decrease
Guess the Dem leadership is even worse than I thought 🤦
As I understand it now, the CR currently being discussed does not include those provisions. It is simply funding the government at current levels until January/February. And only notably excluding additional funding for Israel and Ukraine.
That doesn’t sound like something that the GOP would do. There must be catch if they’re pretending that’s all it is.
For one thing, Kevin Mccarthy was deposed for less (as in more awful and thus better according to the GOP) and they still have the same stupid rules and the same stupid congresspeople who did that…
This is just a continuing resolution that contains nothing but continuing current funding levels. One odd thing is for some of government it’s going until February, but for other parts it’s only going until January. The catch is the gop wants more time to write their insane budgets that contain all their dead on arrival proposals. The continuing resolution gives them more time to write those. Then they pass their insane budget that no Democrat or even most senate Republicans would be okay with, and refuse to negotiate. Then when the funding lapses they plan on shouting, look republicans passed a budget, this is all the democrats fault. Their party is so dysfunctional though they can’t even write a wish list budget that’s nonserious and would never pass, they’re still working on it. Because of the weird structure of the continuing resolution, it’ll be an odd government shutdown where some parts get shut down in January and some until February. That’s why some were saying the Democrats might not go for this resolution. It is pretty much a signal they intend to let the funding lapse in January while they try to push their far right extremist budget plans through. I doubt the extreme right people that pushed out McCarthy will mind this plan, as long as the new speaker is giving in to all their crazy ideas for the final budget proposal that will never pass, whenever they actually finish it.
Ah I see. That makes sense in the usual “comically inept yet still dangerous villains” style of the GOP. Thanks for the explanation 🙂
None of those are in the CR under discussion.
All it does is keep government open until early next year.
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If the stopgap is truly “fund government as-is until January & February” like the article says, then it’s great for Democrats. Keep this whole game of Republicans infighting with each other over tons of unrelated riders going for another couple months.
That is what it is. The previous proposed bills had a bunch of “kick trans people out of the military” sort of shit.
The new CR isn’t a full CR, it notably does not have funding for ukraine or israel, but it is basically just business as usual. The fact that a significant portion of the dem caucus is voting for it has already angered a number of the Rep caucus (who will be voting against it).
And when are Republicans expected to vote with Democrats?
Republicans vote with Democrats whenever Democrats vote with Republicans.
In this case, significant members of both parties want to avoid a shutdown, and the CR will accomplish this without forcing Democrats to make any other concessions.
Democratic support will be crucial, because a number of conservative Republicans are already vowing to oppose the measure to protest the absence of sharp spending cuts — a number large enough to sink the bill without help from across the aisle.
Some of the proposals include:
- Making discrimination based on abortion care from a company legal
- Removal of funds from the IRS, which help reduce the deficit.
- Removal of FBI funds
- Medicare spending cuts
- Funding for Israel
Things that are not included on that list:
- Reducing gas prices
- Reducing food prices
- Reducing housing prices
- Reducing student debt
- Global warming protections
Just in case anyone was wondering if the Republican party is trying to help the American people.
The more desperate Americans are the easier it is for republican donors to exploit us. Sic semper tyrannis.
This is why they haven’t decided, what’s in the bill will decide that.
It keeps government funding largely at current, fiscal year 2023 levels. It avoids the steep cuts the Speaker’s conservative wing is demanding. And it excludes the thorny policy riders on issues like border security and abortion that have provided Democrats with an easy rationale for opposing GOP spending bills in the past.
Democratic leaders, in their letter, had cited all three of those items as major factors in determining how Democrats will vote when the package hits the floor.
I don’t really see another option, unfortunately — the alternative is just going to be a shutdown, given Republicans don’t know what compromise is. And lots of people will suffer if one happens, likely for no material gain.
Let’s pretend a shutdown happens, followed by, “Democrats present bill to fund the government. Republicans reject it!”
I get that this is people’s lives we’re talking about, but Republicans are trying to present it like, “See? Look what you make me do!” They’re abusers, and they should have to own what they’re doing to people’s lives. It should not be Democrats’ responsibility to always bail them out.
Yeah if they want democratic support they should present something that democrats want to support. This whole bullshit of “well if you don’t suck it up now the government shuts down” is just emboldening them every time it works. And remember they’ll tell their constituents that the government only shuts down when democrats are in charge.
Democrats do want to support this bill. It is a clean CR, which is what they’ve called for repeatedly.
It is unconventional because it has two deadlines instead of one, but that does not significantly conflict with the goals of Democrats.
Ok I had been under the impression that it was another of the “we slash the budget in exchange to buy time so we can agree to slash the budget”
I agree! But they’ve shown repeatedly that they’re unwilling to compromise, and the American people have shown that they don’t care that much about Republican unwillingness to compromise at least with the Democrats (remains to be seen about the Speaker fiasco). Given that, it’s better to keep things running and keep people paid.
I agree! But they’ve shown repeatedly that they’re unwilling to compromise, and the American people have shown that they don’t care that much about Republican unwillingness to compromise…
I submit to you, that’s because Democrats have a habit of bailing them out “for the good of the people.” But what if the best thing is to stop bailing them out? Americans have gotten complacent relying on the remaining adults in the room, and too many think the Republicans are still a functional party. Republicans, just as easily as Democrats, can stop this madness by compromising, instead of trying to tie extremist policies to the spending bills.
There’s been shutdowns before. It’s not really leverage when so much is on the line.
That being said, I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I’d rather people not lose their jobs due to political wrangling.
Same. But it’s mainly Republicans that are instigating the problem by putting forth these ideologically-tainted budgets and candidates they know have no chance.
So I guess they forgot about clause 4 of the 14th amendment and are prepared to yet again aid and abet Republicans in committing social murder?
A great reminder that the lesser evil is still evil.
House Freedom Caucus came out against funding the government without cuts, so Democrats are needed to pass the CR.
Now the question is whether the Freedom Caucus will lose out on their other demand of the laddered CR.
So sad too bad. If they had just left them to rot on this, then the Shutdown would be the Republicans fault.
But now they’ve played them. They will change the bill to be unacceptable to Democrats after this statement. And naturally the Democrats will deny it, and the Republicans will cry wolf and point and scream. And publicly it will appear as though it is all the Democrat’s fault.
Next year is an election year. The Republicans know this. They will kick up and hoard as much dirt on Democrats as they possibly can.
It’s pretty easy to explain to voters that the Democrats are on board for a CR with no cuts, despite the laddered structure, and if the bill is changed after that then they might not be on board for whatever change.
No swing voter is going to be fooled by the actions described in your middle paragraph, which is why it won’t happen.
And your last point…of course Republicans will TRY to make Democrats take tough votes, but funding the government 100% IS the popular position. Republicans changing things to push the bill further right makes it a difficult vote for Republicans.
They are kicking the can down the road. Sections of the government will shut down in January with the rest in February.
Yeah, that’s kinda the whole point of a continuing resolution. More time to attempt to find some longer term compromise. Maybe this time without the house paralyzed for weeks with that Speaker circus sideshow.
Different sides of the same coin. Choice is just an illusion to make us think we are in control.
Sorry do you want one side to be the “shut down the government forever” party? Funding the government isn’t a policy where there should be party differences. Fund the government.
I want the left to do what the right is accusing them of doing and doing themselves. Take a hard line on some left policies and blame the right when the right torpedoes them. I want this entire political system to be reworked with the ability to have multiple parties and be resistant to gerrymandering and lobbying.
The multiple parties thing is not legitimately going to happen without a move away from first past the post voting which would require way fucking more political unity than we have right now. If you care about it, work to get it going on the local level to build broader support for it first. Because presently it is a total pipe dream at the federal level.
Nothing I stated will happen because it is not beneficial to either party. Until listening and following your constituents becomes more beneficial than corporations and foreign governments, it will not happen at the federal level. Local has to be the battleground for change. It has to be from the ground up.
Completely agree
