Our new Speaker of the House is not off to a great start:
Speaker Mike Johnson floated a fresh idea for heading off a shutdown after the Nov. 17 deadline — one that would seemingly create a series of rolling funding threats and could draw opposition from across the political spectrum.
....While it’s not totally clear how that would work, Johnson seemed to be referring to different lengths of funding for each of the 12 individual appropriations bills, triggering ongoing shutdown threats for different parts of government.
First he conditioned Israel aid on funding cuts for the IRS. Now he's proposing 12 separate shutdowns for different parts of the government.
Is this just a sign of inexperience? Johnson has never been in a leadership role before. Or is it a sign that even after being elected unanimously he's running scared of the nutball caucus and flailing for ways out?
Maybe both. But I'd put most of my money on the latter. The nutballs still rule the Republican caucus.
Wow! Twelve months in the year, twelve shutdown deadlines! The show that never ends!
The idea is obviously to block appropriations that they more opposed to, while allowing those that they more approve of.
Presumably the senate can see through this and just refuse to go along.
It is not sufficient for the Senate to "refuse to go along". That's a shutdown, unless the House is forced to "go along" with the Senate. No one knows how to do that; it was done, once, earlier this year, quite possibly mostly by accident, but the knock-on effects were net harm and no one knows how to do it again, even disregarding collateral damage.
"It is not sufficient for the Senate..."
That is obvious. Not obvious to me why you reply with this statement.
Personally I think it’s because he’s an idiot who has idiotic ideas.
For people who think shutting down the government is a good idea this would sound like a real winner.
But for the rest of humanity it sounds like something a wannabe jackass 12-year-old would come up with.
The plan is Rolling Stupid.
It's like Rolling Thunder, but carpet bombing with stupid.
'👍👍👍👍😄😄
Time for the MOAS bomb...
I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt - perhaps he's thinking the House can't "walk and chew gum" i.e. if they only focus on one of the appropriation bills at a time, they could get them done faster. IMO this is one of those "Oh why don't we just do this!" sorts of ideas that you have in the shower, then spend a minute or two thinking about it and go "oh, d-mn, that's never gonna work." Just him showing how he's not really been doing much legislating OR even following legislation.
I am going to rule out "he is an idiot" with prejudice. He is not dumb.
I think what he's doing is pandering to the MAGAs and the pro-shutdown crowd with proposals that sound great to them. But won't fly for one reason or another.
I mean, if he gets this to work, manages to negotiate a budget and get it passed, it will be acheivement unlocked. He will have done something Kevin McCarthy couldn't do, and the previous two Republican Speakers quit rather than have to try to do again.
Yes, I could be wrong. He could believe in this stuff. But nearly every word that's come out of his mouth so far seems so lawyerly and seemingly committal while remaining non-committal I don't think so.
What happened to the promise of a clean CR until next year? Someone is not telling the truth. As to MJ, it appears he is way over his head but that’s not surprising from someone who flat out rejects science.
"Someone is not telling the truth."
This is not a surprise, because it is the Republicans, where nobody is telling the truth.
👍👍👍👍
If he's sincere, he shouldn't be allowed to organize anything more consequential than a shopping trip.
But he's extremely 'vangy, so I seriously doubt he's sincere. Being an insincere agent of chaos doesn't imply he has any organizational skills, however.
His comment re IRS budget:
"Only in Washington when you cut spending do they call it an increase in the deficit,"
isn't something he thought up on-the-fly while being pursued by reporters as he walked the Capitol halls.
He's an evangelical/conservative cliché machine. And from what I can tell, about as deep as he ever considers a topic.
"Or is it a sign that even after being elected unanimously he's running scared of the nutball caucus and flailing for ways out?"
Where's the evidence that he's scared? That he's flailing for ways out? I don't see any.
Isn't it more likely, based on everything we've learned, that he's completely on board with the nutball caucus? He's their prime agent for pushing through their radical agenda to create chaos, sabotage government, tank the economy, and aid and assist tyrants like Comrade Vlad, all before the next election.
Boehner, Ryan, even McCarthy, were all in their time institutional players, ultimately interested in doing the business that needs to be done. My read says Johnson & co. are not interested in getting business done. They will use what leverage they have to get others who do want business done (Senate, White House) to cave to their demands. More individual bills, more hostages, every one an opportunity to force the other side to pay ransom. They're the Hamas of US government.
+1
He's a lawyer on top of his other sins, and what he says about his aims doesn't have to relate in any way to what he he really wants to see happen. Thinking it does is likely to be a fundamental mistake, especially if your priors include the idea that of course our institutions should work. Weasel words can appeal to those priors but mean nothing.
Plus, the guy presumably doesn't operate completely without advice about either goals or means. Especially since he doesn't know much about the nitty-gritty. So he's working with like-minded people in his caucus, and we know what they've been after here.
Ergo, best to put aside anything he might say about his goals or the effects he wants his proposals to have. By his fruits we shall know his heart, rather than by his words.
Kevin, I think you are ignoring the most obvious explanatio. Johnson is pushing legislation that will create chaos, undermine economic stability, and damage the United States because those are his goals
Bobby Jindal asked Republicans: “do you want to become the Stupid Party?” The answer was an overwhelming “HELL YES!!”
+1!
Come on Kevin, haven't you been listening to the words that have been coming out of his word hole? All you need to know about his governing philosophy is right there in the Bible. God legislates through My Johnson!
"...after being elected unanimously..." Well, except for all the Democrats who voted against him.
Does it make any difference?
Regardless of how sensible a plan Johnson coughs up--and there's exactly zero reason to think anything he coughs up will be more sensible than defunding the tax crime police, exploding the deficit, and attempting to cover up said explosion of deficit by prohibiting the CBO from scoring it--the Crazy Eight and other assorted deranged sociopaths in his Klown Kar Klub will never allow anything sensible to be enacted.
Fortunately, Biden watched the Modern Confederate Party gut Obama, and he knows in a shutdown what goes first: not the Smithsonian and national parks--MAGA doesn't care--but the general aviation airports that serve Johnson's billionaire paymasters.
Fly commercial? Quelle horreur!
First, he's a true believer of the MAGA. He was a key member of the group attempting to overturn the elections.
Second, as a true believer, he thinks he has leverage to do things the MAGA way.
So, whereas I thought McCarthy would cave to the MAGA and allow a long shutdown but subsequently revealed himself to be an institutionalist, now the House has a MAGA true believer and the federal government will shut down possibly all the way through the end of the year.
Option 3: he is himself a nutball, a True Believer.
What is the real reason Mike Johnson wants to defund the IRS?
Can it have to do with his mystery finances?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/does-new-speaker-of-the-house-mike-johnson-have-a-bank-account?ref=wrap
I'm awaiting with interest the "offsets" to pay for his Ukraine aid bill. Strip some more billions from the IRS? Defund "politicial witch hunts" by the DoJ? Shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Stop funding schools that have scratching posts for furries?
Good question. Maybe not enough money in scratching posts, which is too bad. But what would own the libs more than offsetting cuts in welfare, or food stamps, or Obamacare? He's from a basically urban district-- Shreveport/Bossier City, one of whose major industries is Barksdale AFB-- and probably doesn't yet know about the tie-ins between food stamps and ag subsidies, so he might float that one first if nobody alerts him.
Or, as I think about it, offsets from Inflation Reduction Act climate change provisions would probably look mighty tasty, maybe enough to move to the head of the list.
Ah, so that’s what autocorrect does with “brainfart” …
lol!