Another Shutdown

In his first term, President Trump presided over two shutdowns.  One lasted for 3 days and the other for a record-breaking 35 days.  Here is yet another opportunity to determine which agencies are really needed and which can be disbanded.  Do we really need the Department of Education.  It was only created in 1979 and education outcomes were better before its creation than since.  It has already undergone some trimming, but elimination would save more money.  What about the Department of Housing and Urban Development?  Another relatively new agency (1965), it doesn't appear to have improved that which it was created to oversee.  If the agency hasn't found a way to prevent urban decay and homelessness despite billions in funding and 6 decades of experience, maybe it isn't possible.  Oh, but how much worse would it be without HUD?  Let's find out.  Department of Labor should be abolished.  Another money pit that generates regulations that discourage job creation.  Department of Transportation is yet another government expansion from the 1960s.  What does it do?  They show up after a train derailment or a plane crash and grandstand.  As if the companies wouldn't endeavor to prevent such incidents themselves; derailments and plane crashes are terrible for profits.  Oh, but it makes it appear the government is doing something.  We'll regulate against derailments and crashes.

The US has a $37 trillion national debt and thinks it doesn't need to cut anything.  Even with the government 'shutdown,' the debt is still growing.  It is time to look at the successes of Argentina's pruning of its bloated government and the benefits that have followed.

Tit for Tat

In answer to Speaker Pelosi canceling President Trump's State of the Union address, Trump has canceled Pelosi's world tour, unless she wants to fly commercial.  Two can play this game, Madam Speaker.  I love this shutdown.  May it go on for years.  That absence of government - at least that part that is furloughed - has had no impact on my life so far, beyond the entertainment value.  The longer the shutdown goes, the more likely people will realize that we are paying $100K salaries to perform unnecessary jobs.  If the shutdown lasts 30 days, various departments can move for a Reduction in Force.  We've done without you for a month so we're just going to eliminate your position.  Oh, that would be SO great.  That's one way to drain the swamp.  Most of these people vote Democrat anyway (Hillary won over 90% of the vote in DC) so it's not as if Trump or the Republicans are punishing their voters.  That's leverage that Trump will have on his side in a week.  Of course, Trump is in high-stakes territory.  Loss on the shutdown could sour his base of support.  Failing to get concessions from the Democrats now will mean he never gets concessions.

 

Uncontrolled immigration has successfully turned California from a reliably red state into a reliably blue state.  Texas and Arizona are trending toward blue.  Continuing this policy of unenforced borders benefits the Democrats.  Of course, it also benefits Republican donors who like the cheap labor.  No wonder everyone hates Trump.

 

Much of this current fight can be related to some of Trump's Elements of the Deal as detailed in The Art of the Deal.  Here are a few I see in practice.

 

1. Use Your Leverage: The shutdown makes Trump a bottleneck for spending.  Until the Congress can muster the votes to override a veto, he is in the driver seat.  He was able to cancel Pelosi's trip and he may soon get to reduce the federal workforce.

 

2. Get the Word Out: Trump is nothing if not a self-promoter.  No previous Republican president has ever pushed his case in a shutdown as hard at Trump has.  In fact, they just cave and lose.

 

3. Fight Back: Where George H. W. Bush served as a punching bag during a shutdown during his administration, Trump is fighting back.  He doesn't have the decorum bone in his body, making it hard to shame him into surrender.

 

4. Deliver the Goods: You can self-promote and blather for only so long before people realize you haven't done anything for them.  If Trump doesn't build the wall or some convincing facsimile thereof, he's toast.  He knows this.

 

5. Contain the Costs: Trump has requested $5.7 billion for the wall.  The federal budget is over $4 trillion.  The US spends $6 billion a year subsidizing the sugar industry, which is why American's pay more for sugar than the world market rate.  California's bullet train is going to cost almost $80 billion!  The wall is a bargain.

 

6. Have Fun: Whatever you think of Trump, it is pretty clear he is having fun.

 

Long live the shutdown!

Shutdown Showdown

There is yet another threat of a government shutdown and the Republicans are quaking in their boots.  They have spent years promising to cave on every last principle they supposedly hold rather than let nonessential portions of the government close up shop.  This constant spinelessness is why the tactic is repeated, year after year.  The Democrats can stand on their principle - no funding for the border wall - and be hailed as heroes.  Is it any wonder that this broken record is put on the turntable so regularly?  Every shutdown in the last 20 plus years has benefited the Democrats, either as propaganda or electoral advantage.

 

Trump suggested that he might be okay with delaying the funding for the wall until the budget fight rather than this continuing resolution.  Such only encourages the Democrats to press on with the threat of a shutdown.  Amazing how the shutdown will be triggered by the Democrats but blamed on the Republicans and Trump.  It is great when the media is on your side.  Trump would be best served to let the government shutdown.  Most of the people who are sent home are members of the 'resistance' to his presidency anyway.  Besides, the best time to be unpopular is when it isn't an election year.  Pin the shutdown on the Democrats intransigence over a comparatively tiny sum of money and this shutdown tactic might get shelved.  If Trump let's it slide now, the shutdown will just be rescheduled for September.

Shutdown Failure

As predicted, the Republicans folded, the media place ALL the blame on them, and they got nothing to show for the effort.  Failure.  It is odd that the Republicans repeatedly offered to open the government throughout the shutdown but the Senate and the President continually said "No."  One of the Republican offers was to give the President everything he wanted though it required that all members of Congress and their staffs must be on Obamacare like everyone else.  Harry Reid squashed that and the media didn't hammer him for it.  I wonder how that would have played had it been a Republican Senate that refused to reopen the government in order to protect such perks.  Think the press would have shrugged and continued to blame the other party?  I suspect not.

Some say this hasn't been a complete loss.  The shutdown shined a light on government and the citizenry has the lowest opinion of it since records have been kept.  Also, the Republicans have successfully placed themselves firmly in opposition to Obamacare, a program that is off to a rocky start to say the least.

Debt Crisis Yawner

Again with the default talk and the manufactured panic, all to convince the American people to further rob their grandkids to pay for current services.  As I noted in a previous post, a default is when you fail to pay the interest on your debts, not when you stop paying for current services.  The government can layoff several departments worth of employees and that isn't default; that's economizing.  As George Will noted, "Default is a choice."  The government need merely service the debt in order to maintain the full faith and credit of the US.  That is about 10% of the budget...  er... continuing resolution (we don't do budgets anymore despite US law that requires them).  If the debt ceiling is not raised, that puts the ball in Obama's court to pick and choose how the incoming revenues are disbursed.  He would have to CHOOSE to default.  Sadly, I wouldn't put it past him.  He has actually spent shutdown budget repeatedly blocking off National Mall.

The Republicans might be on to something with the shutdown and the debt crisis.  They have long claimed to be the party of small government (disingenuously) and this gives them the opportunity to achieve that.  Failing to raise the debt ceiling will force government to spend within its means and the shutdown can be made permanent.  Heck, the government is still 83% open, hardly a shutdown.

Of note, neither party wants to diminish the power of the Federal Government.  A sizable minority of Republicans - the Tea Party Caucus - have the party over a barrel.  Boehner cannot pass anything without their approval unless he does so with Democratic votes.  Such a move breaks the Republican caucus in half and ends his speakership.  Much as the rest of the Republicans hate that, they understand that to ostracize the Tea Partiers is to cripple their majority.

Back to the Debt Limit, imagine what the last 5 years growth would have been like had it not been raised.  Six trillion dollars of borrowed money would not have inflated the growth numbers.  Consider that gross domestic product (GDP) is defined as follows:

C + I + G + (X - M)

That is, Consumption + Investment + Government + (eXports - iMports).  Note that government spending is reckoned in the figures.  Thus, by borrowing all that money, the government goosed the numbers.  Consider if I took out a $100,000 loan this year and counted that as income.  Wow, this would be a really great year.  That is what the government does every year.  And even so, our growth has been pathetic, hovering at 2%.  Cutoff the borrowing and the truth will out.  Almost everyone in Washington is afraid of the truth.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me for five years, I'm an Obama voter."

The quote is from Charlie Martin.  Here's a link to the article:

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/14/i-told-you-so-obamacare-edition/

Bias

The federal government has been in partial shutdown since Oct. 1 after the Republican-controlled House refused to pass legislation to fund government services unless the president's health care law is delayed or defunded. Obama has refused to negotiate over his signature domestic legislation, otherwise known as Obamacare.

I read the above passage on Yahoo News.  How else might it have said the same thing?  Let's try a bit of a rewrite:

The federal government has been in partial shutdown since Oct. 1 after the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to pass legislation to fund government services unless the president's health care law was left unaltered.

The first lays blame for the shutdown on the Republicans and the second on the Democrats.  Both of these statements are true.  In which case, it is hard to lay blame on only one party.  The fact that it is laid on one demonstrates a bias of Yahoo News.

http://news.yahoo.com/arizona-de-fuhrer-barton-obama-134942788.html

Obsession

Majority Leader Harry Reid accused the Republicans of being 'obsessed' by Obamacare and couldn't figure out why.  Let's have a look at the history of big and controversial legislation.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 - now widely credited solely to the Democratic Party - was passed with 199 Democratic votes (65% of the Democrats) and 166 Republicans (80%).  Not so controversial when you look at the votes but viewed so today.  Anyway, very bipartisan.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was even more lopsided with 400 votes in favor vs. only 104 opposed, getting the majority of each party.

The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (part of LBJ's War on Poverty) passed with 32 Republican votes and 254 Democrat votes.  Clearly not a favorite of Republicans but still able to coax about a sixth of them to vote in favor.

No Child Left Behind (2001) passed with huge bipartisan support, 473 to 53.

Medicare Part D (2003) passed by a very narrow margin, but enjoyed bipartisan support.

The Authorization for Military Force in Afghanistan (2001) - which has become extremely controversial since it was approved - had almost unanimous support, passing 98 - 0 in the Senate and with only 1 vote in opposition (Barbara Lee of CA) in the House.

The Authorization for the Iraq War (2003) got 263 Republican votes and 103 Democrat votes in favor.  Of course, not long after this, most of the Democrats denounced their votes with claims of being 'lied to' by the administration.  Nonetheless, this now hugely controversial vote enjoyed considerable bipartisan support.

The Affordable Care Act (2010) got 279 Democrat votes and 0 Republican votes.  Also, not to be overlooked, it had 34 Democrats voting against it.  The opposition to the bill was bipartisan but not the support.  Here is the most consequential legislation in decades and yet it was passed on an entirely partisan vote.  Why is anyone surprised that the party that voted 100% in opposition would be so determined to undermine it?

The President and the Democrats continually say that the Supreme Court upheld the law.  Yes, but the President has dramatically altered what the Supreme Court approved.  He has delayed the Employer Mandate (without benefit of Congressional Legislation), the cap on benefits, subsidy based on income, and about half the deadlines.  The President has offered more than 2000 waivers from the law.  He has provided for the Congress to get health care subsidies not available to the common folk, effectively exempting them from the law.  The law did not provide for the Federal Government to setup Exchanges but they've done it anyway because half the states declined to do so!  This is not the law the Congress passed or the Supreme Court found Constitutional.  Presidents do not get to rewrite laws to their liking.  Considering this, why is anyone surprised that some are adamantly opposed?  This is not the rule of law.

All or Nothing

Not surprisingly, there is heat on the Republicans for the government shutdown.  So, per my suggestion, the Republicans have sent over some piecemeal bills to fund this or that part of the government.  The Senate (run by Democrats) has refused to vote on them.  Thus, even though the Democrats could ameliorate the pain of the shutdown by simply passing the continuing resolutions for those functions of government that both parties agree upon, they have opted not to do so.  Why?  The reason is clear: a piecemeal approach will allow the Republicans to take the pressure off.  After all, how many Americans are going to complain if the shutdown is reduced to only the Obamacare Exchanges?  The Democrats need AS MUCH of the government shutdown as possible so that they can pressure the Republicans through the media and public opinion.  With each part of the government that is reopened, the pressure diminishes.  In short, it benefits the Democrats to have the shutdown be as onerous as possible.  Who shut down the government again?

As for Obamacare, it is too soon to tell but there are certainly signs of failure.  President Obama compared the glitches in Obamacare to those of IOS7 for Apple.  Apple had some glitches and fixed them.  No one suggested that Apple stop selling iPhones and iPads because it didn't work perfectly.  That strikes me as a weak comparison.  The government is not REQUIRING people to buy Apple products but it is requiring Obamacare on pain of IRS fines... er... taxes (thank you, Chief Justice John Roberts).  Even Obama cheerleaders at MSNBC and CNN have been unable to purchase insurance through the exchanges.  Yes, this will improve.  However, if three years of preparations have resulted in this kind of rollout, the final product will probably make the DMV look efficient.

Negotiating

The House of Representatives crafted a continuing resolution (CR) that would keep all the government running - even at its deficit-spending levels - but included the defunding of Obamacare.  The Senate thought it was almost perfect, except for that last bit.  They stripped that out and sent it back.  Moderating its demands, the House included a one year delay of the individual mandate (it's only fair since the employer mandate has been delayed for a year) and a requirement that the Congress not get 'special' treatment with regards to health insurance subsidies.  The Senate stripped out the add-ons and sent it back, giving not an inch.  It is Harry Reid's way or shutdown!  See, negotiating.  Harry is counting on the media to blame the Republicans no matter how recalcitrant he proves to be in this back and forth; they will.

President Obama took to the airwaves to blast the Republicans' efforts, saying that the people didn't repeal the law when they had the chance back in November (i.e. by electing Mitt Romney).  I did not realize that the election was a referendum on Obamacare (I believe the Obamacare referendum was the 2010 "shellacking" election).  Nor, I suspect, did the voters.  After all, they did vote for all these pesky Republicans who - presumably - are representing their constituents.  Right?

To my astonishment, the Republicans haven't cracked yet.  Barring some last minute deal, it looks like the government will shutdown in about an hour.  How long will that last?  Once it does, the Republicans are in dangerous waters.  To fold after the shutdown, they MUST get something or the whole exercise will be a PR nightmare.  At least the timing is much better than the last one which happened during Christmas and New Year in 1995/6 and led to the Gingrich Who Stole Christmas.  Once shutdown, the Republicans can send piecemeal CRs to bring everything back.  Suddenly, the refusal of a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President to accept money to reopen the government will look bad.  They will have to say "Give us everything we want or we won't accept anything."  This might work out better than I'd have expected.

But, more likely, the Republicans will cave and get nothing.  Why?  Because, as I pointed out in a previous blog, they are spineless.

Shutdown-phobia

Back in 1995, the Republican Congress had a disagreement with the Democratic President on spending.  This resulted in a shutdown of the government which - according to legend - was disastrous to the Republican Party.  Much bad press was heaped upon the recalcitrant GOP.  Not surprisingly, the Republicans are not eager to go through that again.  And that is the problem.

If you announce to your opponent that you will bend to his will rather than shutdown the government, you will be amazed how often the government finds itself at threat of shutting down.  It's like knowing that Superman's weakness is Kryptonite.  What fool isn't going to try to have Kryptonite on hand for every encounter?  If I could get the other party to acquiesce to my goals by letting us come to the brink, I'm going to keep doing that as long as it works.

If the government shuts down, it is a given that the media will report that it is the Republicans fault.  It is funny that when there was a government shutdown during the first Bush administration, it was the Republican President's fault.  But a few years later, when it shut down under the Clinton administration, it was the Republican Congress's fault.  Let's see, we currently have a Democrat as president, a Democratic Senate, and a Republican House... that means it is the Republican House's fault if there is a shutdown.  Isn't it peculiar how the Republicans are always to blame?

Arguably, a shutdown may not be a good strategic move at this moment.  The Debt Ceiling presents better 'marketing' for the Republicans than a shutdown.  But that doesn't change the point that if you always cave when a shutdown is threatened, you have announced a weakness that will be repeatedly used against you.  The Republicans have to get over 1995 and be willing to make the argument that the Democrats are just as responsible for a shutdown.