The all-new Musk-approved CR has passed and there will be no government shutdown. Huzzah.
But I'm curious. The CR still contains farm aid and hurricane relief—which accounted for the vast majority of new spending. It fully funds the Francis Scott Key bridge. It extends funding for Columbia and Virginia-class subs.
It killed the transfer of RFK Stadium to DC, but that involved no money. It killed the reform of pharmacy benefit managers, which would have cut spending by a couple billion dollars. It cut pediatric cancer research, saving $190 million. It killed $6 million in congressional pay raises. It killed restrictions on Chinese investment; disclosure of junk fees; and criminalization of some deepfake images—all of which had no cost.
So my question is: When everything is netted out, did cutting down the CR actually save any money? CBO, oddly, has published estimated spending under both the old September CR ($1.777 trillion) and Friday's new CR ($1.834 trillion), but never published an estimate for the in-between bipartisan CR on Tuesday that provoked Elon Musk's revolt. So there's no good comparison of the previous CR and the shiny new one. It may be a thousand pages shorter, but that doesn't necessarily mean it cost any less. I'll bet it didn't.
It really looks to me as if the point was to avoid restrictions on Musk's factories in China.
Prove to me that it wasn't.
Yep.
We are going to see continuous drama to distract us from the grift, self-dealing and outright theft of public resources that will be going on.
Plus, he doesn’t have the police for deep fake revenge porn on his stupid website
What am I missing? China strongly dislikes Trump and his tariffs. Last time they responded in part by not buying any more Boeing jet (China was previously a major market for Boeing). If they are really looking for a way to punish Trump and his friends, what's to stop them from just nationalizing Elon's Chinese factories?
Besides helping juice the Western push to invest outside China, that's maybe the nuclear option they hold back for several steps down the road? Plus, trump and Musk's alliance is brand-new and almost everybody thinks they're going to be at each other's throats at some point. When that happens, trump is more likely to be cheerleading a Chinese takeover of Tesla's assets than to be mad about it. So if they're going to do it anyway, why not wait until after the falling-out and use the takeover to get on trump's good side?
When it comes to Musk himself and his tweetstorm tantrum, that looks like a pretty strong motivation. Also the revenge-porn provision peterh32 mentioned. I can easily see him flying off the handle on finding out about either one of them.
As far as trump going along, why wouldn't he want to kill the pharmacy provision for now so he can use that threat to get payoffs from the PBMs? Is he really the guy to pass up such an obvious grifting opportunity [purely rhetorical]? And I think he'd just go through the roof over the provision that hotels would have to be very clear about how they're labeling and itemizing their charges. I'd bet it's close enough to home that by itself it'd be enough for him to want to kill the whole package.
So it looks to me like there were plenty of provisions in the original deal that could have ignited both of these extremely stable geniuses.
Performance theater.
No one cares. $190 million? may as well be a dollar.
I think I read somewhere that the pediatric cancer thingy was passed in a separate bill. There was some unnecessary fear and suffering and that always makes trump happy.
Ahhh, the d.c. stadium-land transfer apparently also passed separately. The chaos is the point.
The Senate passed the pediatric cancer research bill separately. The House considered it back in March but has apparently not held a vote on it yet.
I wonder what the back story on that is, seems like a lot of drama over a really small amount of money for a seemingly really popular thing.
I wonder if there is some religious right objection to something in the research?
Well, to be a scripture stickler, anything "medical" would amount to "playing Gawd", so it must be wrong. Of course, nobody sees it that way. They like to pick and choose the (women's) medical issues that step out of bounds.
The RFK stadium transfer passed separately.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/12/21/rfk-stadium-deal-dc-bowser-congress/
These folks are a lot of blow and little go but for what goes on behind the scenes and who profits.
Savings? Of course! Savings will come from cuts to fighting CA wild fires, rebuilding the Scott Key bridge, and any other money previously designated for blue states
It may have been about the Chinese investment restrictions, but perhaps it was just simple bullying and imposing his dominance over Congress (and everyone) by President Elect Elmo, the new big swinging dick in Washington (and the rest of world apparently). Not sure how much longer Orange Jesus is going to stand for this diminishment of his power, but for sure, Elmo is far, far richer than he is.
This is what pushing billionaires out windows is good for. Putin will eventually tell Trump his secret on keeping the rich people in line and out of the spotlight, which Trump craves solely for himself.
Putin has used the judiciary to suppress oligarchs that dared oppose him, as Trump has threatened to . Don’t be too surprised, if Musk keeps upstaging TFM, if he finds himself facing tax-evasion or trade-restrictions violations. See the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Elmo will get FIRED! for upstaging the show host, then go onto run for president in 2028, where he will easily crush Vance in the primary.
They will have to change the Constitution first. Elmo was born in South Africa.
Please don't call him "Elmo". The cute furry red Muppet from Sesame Street doesn't deserve to have his name sullied by Elon's crackpottery.
"Elmo" is a needless further contraction of "Elon Musk," which is of course already a contraction/nickname of his true appellation: Elongated Muskrat.
I like muskrats and almost all furry creatures (and those with feathers / but tolerant of those with scales). I am sure an appropriate name for him will be found, that does not denigrate muskrats or blue puppets.
I never refer to that Orange Shit Stain as an orangutan, since it is very insulting to an orangutan's intelligence.
Very strange dynamic between those 2 shit heads, though all of his advisors, staff, and cabinet members are likely to be thrown under the bus when the mood suits him.
So, no to "Emu"?
Considering that every single federal agency and department had to have their staff prepare for a shutdown, and now all those plans will be trash canned, the dicking around almost definitely wasted money. Presumably, unless you believe nobody in the entire federal government does anything useful, wasting time preparing for something that doesn’t happen has opportunity cost: those staff members could’ve been working on something more productive. Thankfully, most Americans - having never lived in a truly dysfunctional country without a competent government - seem to believe that in fact the feds do nothing useful and so they’ll never know that dicking around actually costs taxpayers more than not dicking around.
They should keep their shutdown plans in a place that is easy to get to for the next 4 years.
Sadly upvoting both you and Austin.
Are the shutdown preps what made the "stripped down" bill cost an extra $57,000,000,000? How come a bill with less ended up costing more? Is this how Republicans are going to "save" our "taxpayer dollars" for the next two years?
American want government handouts reduced. Just not their handout.
So expect Fla reps to courageously vote to cut back wasteful spending on CA WildFires, and N Dakota reps to vote down costal flooding and NJ to take a critical look at spending for farm subsidies. Of course bipartisanship will fix that.
Oh wait
Yeah... I actually know a guy with a bad combover who owns some juicy property right on the coast. Of Florida. Of course, this same guy thinks that rising ocean levels mean "more beachfront property!" because, more than likely, he has never taken a bath and never noticed that rising waters mean... less open bathtub.
Americans want government handouts reduced. Just not their handout. So expect Fla reps to courageously vote to cut back wasteful spending on CA WildFires, and N Dakota reps to vote down costal flooding and NJ to take a critical look at farm subsidies.
Finding common ground? Only the spirit of bipartisanship can save us!
Yeah we’re screwed
"Americans want government handouts reduced. Just not their handout"
And the mirror image, "don't tax me, don't tax thee, tax that fella behind the tree." Other than that, it's all for one and one for all around here.
"So my question is: When everything is netted out, did cutting down the old CR actually save any money?"
As Paul Krugman points out in his newsletter, that's not really the point. Muskaswamy are operating on an anti-Willie Sutton principle - going after things where the money isn't. If they were serious about saving money, they wouldn't do that.