Category: Budget

Senate Ends Filibuster; Democrats Immediately Form Circular Firing Squad

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After a week of conservatives tearing each other apart over Tucker Carlson, etc., it’s nice to see the Democrats take their turn:

A backlash has been brewing against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for possibly striking a deal to end the government shutdown.
As reports surfaced on Sunday of a pending deal between Republicans and Democrats, opponents of the deal immediately voiced their disdain for Chuck Schumer on social media, accusing him of acquiescing to Republican demands. . . .
According to NBC News, the U.S. senators reached a “tentative deal” to end the government shutdown.
“Senators struck an agreement Sunday, projecting confidence that it will be sufficient to end the lengthy U.S. government shutdown, three sources with direct knowledge of the details told NBC News,” it reported.
“The agreement, reached by a group of Democrats who teamed up with Republicans, cleared the first hurdle on a vote of 60-40 to advance in a late-night Senate vote. If it’s approved, it would then need to pass the House and gain President Donald Trump’s signature to become law and reopen the government,” it added.

Later Sunday, the Senate voted to end the filibuster:

A disastrous shutdown for Democrats got worse Sunday when Senate Democrats folded on government funding while receiving nothing of substance in return.
Eight Senate Democrats voted with 52 Republicans Sunday night on a procedural vote to allow a continuing resolution (CR) funding the government to advance.
The motion passed 60 to 40, without a single vote to spare, and will enable a future vote on a clean continuing resolution through January 30, 2026, packaged with three relatively non-controversial appropriations bills extending through the fiscal year: agriculture, military construction-Veterans Affairs, and legislative branch.
The agreement includes back pay for federal employees and guarantees that the 4,000-plus federal employees laid off during the shutdown will be rehired, as well as a blanket prohibition on future reductions in force through January 30. Those jobs are a drop in the bucket compared to the 250,000 or so the Trump administration eliminated before the shutdown.
Most significantly, the agreement does not guarantee an extension of Covid-era enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies, with Democrats only receiving assurances of a vote on a bill of their choice.


Chuck Schumer led Democrats in voting for the longest shutdown in history, and now they’re all denouncing him as a traitor:

Democrats and progressives exploded with outrage after the Senate took a giant step toward reopening the government Sunday night, with many calling for Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s ouster.
Schumer (D-NY), who voted against the bipartisan package to end the longest government shutdown in US history, was slammed for failing to prevent five Democratic defections that allowed the measure to advance, despite Republicans making no concessions on keeping Obamacare subsidies due to expire at the end of this year.
“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) chided on X. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
“Tonight is another example of why we need new leadership,” jeered Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who launched his primary challenge to Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) last month, on X. “If @ChuckSchumer were an effective leader, he would have united his caucus to vote ‘No’ tonight and hold the line on healthcare.
“Maybe now @EdMarkey will finally join me in pledging not to vote for Schumer [as conference leader after the 2026 elections]?”

Democrats have been acting this way for 20 years, going back to the G.W. Bush administration, which is when young leftists started calling themselves “progressives” to differentiate themselves from regular liberals (e.g., Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton) who had supported Bush on the Iraq war. Whenever a Republican is in the White House, the left wing of the Democratic Party — especially the always-online activist types — demand that Democrats in Congress fight! fight! fight!

This kind of maximum-resistance stance is easy for people whose only stake in the game is social media clicks, or for congressional Democrats elected from deep-blue states or districts. The problem comes in swing states and districts, where being a “common-sense” Democrat is much closer to what the voters want, and where voting to shut down the government makes you look like an extremist. One could speak of similar tendencies on the Republican side, but Democrats have been wrecked time and time again by this fight! fight! fight! mentality — they won a congressional majority in 2006, then lost the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. Four years later, Democrats won a majority again in the 2018 midterms, only to lose both the House and Senate in 2022.

So now, having demanded that Schumer and the Senate shut down the government — while trying to blame Republicans — now the “progressive” grassroots of the Democratic Party are ready to ditch Schumer because he ended the shutdown without getting anything substantial as a consequence. It’s a beautiful thing, to watch your enemies waging war against each other. Let’s hope they keep it up.



 

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Big Win for President Trump as House Votes to Pass the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

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This is the kind of blogging I very seldom do, because the legislative process is generally boring, when it’s not painful. Grant that sometimes, the process is both boring and painful, but only the ultra-nerdy policy wonks ever get excited about this stuff, and I’ve never been one of those.

Both House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune deserve praise and gratitude for getting the votes necessary for passage of H.R.1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (yes, that’s the official name). Given that Republicans have a razor-thin House majority, and they’re six votes shy of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, this was a near-miraculous accomplishment. Bradley Jaye at Breitbart:

Republicans successfully met Trump’s Independence Day goal – belittled as unrealistic by the establishment media – clearing the path for a bill signing ceremony Friday that undoubtedly will be one for the ages.
Trump, in a Thursday morning Truth Social post, accurately called the legislation “one of the most consequential bills ever.”
The bill, which codifies into law much of what Trump has done through executive action and unlocks much more that required Congressional approval, may be considered by history as Trump’s crowning achievement. . . .
[T]he legislation manages to include almost every campaign promise Trump made on his Shermanesque march through all seven swing states, delivering wins conservatives never could have dreamed of during the Barack Obama or George W. Bush — or even Trump 45 — administrations.
Although Democrat fearmongering on Medicaid reforms has received outsized attention from the establishment media, the legislation not only extends or makes permanent Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — including no taxes on tips, overtime, or social security – but delivers on Trump’s signature issue of border security.
In many ways, the big, beautiful bill realizes the promise of Trump’s 2016 win, during which the mogul destroyed the open borders globalists’ stranglehold on the Republican Party.

Even discounting for the MAGA fever hype factor of that description, this is nevertheless a major win for Team Trump, and may help congressional Republicans stem the expected 2026 mid-term backlash. Historically, the president’s party loses seats in mid-term elections, but the Democrats are in disarray, demoralized and discombobulated after the wretched end of Biden’s embarrassing one-term stint in the White House, so it’s possible the GOP can avert the typical mid-term defeat. Meanwhile, let me throw out a somewhat crazy take on how and why this deal got done:

The Israel-Iran war.

What was the biggest threat to passage of the Big Beautiful Bill? A Senate filibuster. Mike Johnson could whip his caucus and twist arms to get enough votes to pass the bill in the House, but how could it ever get past the Senate, where it takes 60 votes (or 59 senators, plus the VP’s vote, if necessary) to get “cloture” and let a bill proceed to an up-or-down vote.

OK, so the Big Beautiful Bill got final House approval on June 10. Three days later, Israel launched its attack on Iran, targeting their military leadership and nuclear weapons program. The war culminated June 22 with the U.S. striking three Iranian nuclear facilities, and two days later, Trump announced a ceasefire ending what he called “The 12-Day War.”

Trump’s decisive action as Commander-in-Chief served as a stark contrast to Biden’s weakness and now let me ask you, who is the Democratic Party leader in the U.S. Senate?

Say what you will about Chuck Schumer — and I’m pretty sure I’ve never said anything good about him — he has always been pro-Israel, and as much as Chuck hates Trump, you have to imagine that him seeing Trump standing strong against the mullahs in Iran counted for something.

Perhaps my hunch on this is crazy, but how else do you explain why Schumer didn’t wage a filibuster to stop what is obviously a major legislative victory for Trump? As much as our “America First” friends may lament it, I say Trump won by playing the Zionist card.

Anyway, Stephen Miller is in the gloat zone.

Really, this is a big win, and we don’t get many of those on Capitol Hill, so it’s best to gloat all we can when we get the chance.



 

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Chuck Schumer Tells the Truth?

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Ed Morrissey is having a gloat about Chuck Schumer’s appearance Sunday on Meet the Press, where Kristen Welker challenged him: “Leader Schumer, are you feeling pressure to step down?” To which Schumer replied. “Look, I’m not stepping down.” And this is gloat-worthy, because Schumer has become toxic with the Democratic Party’s “progressive” grassroots since he punted on his previous threat of a government shutdown. However — wow, how did this ever happen? — I feel a need to say a few words in defense of Schumer.

In explaining his vote in favor of the continuing resolution (CR) that will keep the government funded for another six months, Schumer said, “The CR was certainly bad, you know, the continuing resolution. But a shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse,” before going on to explain that such a shutdown would have empowered Trump to pick and choose which agencies and programs got closed until Congress could reach a spending agreement. And this is certainly true, even if Schumer’s suggestions about what Trump might have done are paranoid fantasies invented to stoke the fears of liberals. Far more important to Schumer, however, is that Democrats would have been blamed for the shutdown.

Republicans already had their “Schumer Shutdown” talking points ready to roll if Schumer had filibustered the CR. That’s one thing that the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party doesn’t wish to acknowledge — there was a Senate majority in favor of passing the CR, and in order to prevent that, Schumer would have had to order Democrats to vote “no” on cloture, thus filibustering the bill. Democrats are on record denouncing the filibuster as an outdated vestige of Jim Crow, just like Democrats are on record declaring that government shutdowns are horrible, and yet the Left was demanding that Schumer invoke a filibuster to cause a shutdown? The optics of such a maneuver would be awful, and Schumer could see that train coming down the tracks at full steam. All those video clips of what Democrats said about filibusters and shutdowns in the past would have been playing on endless loop, and if you think the favorability of the Democratic Party is bad now, it would have been far worse with a “Schumer shutdown.” This is just a fact.

As Ed Morrissey says, Schumer had calculated on House Republicans coming up short of a majority on the CR, and needing Democrat voters to pass it, which would have led to negotiations favorable to Democrats. Unfortunately for Chuck, Trump helped House Speaker Mike Johnson twist enough Republican arms to get the votes he needed, which put the ball in Schumer’s court, and there was then no good option for Senate Democrats — either pass the CR, or take the blame.

Look, I know there are people on our side who hate the CR as much as any left-wing Democrat hates it — for completely opposite reasons — but when Republicans have control of the White House and both houses of Congress, it would look very bad if we couldn’t avoid a shutdown. “Amateur hour,” is what that would look like to a lot of voters, and the GOP needs to avoid lending credibility to the Democrats’ accusation that Trump is causing “chaos” in Washington. No shutdown, no chaos.

That’s the smart play, and if some MAGA true believers want to call me a sellout for advocating the smart play, well, I can’t help it. The way Washington operates, we seldom get a chance to throw a 50-yard TD pass, and instead must content ourselves to push the ball down the field one play at a time. Don’t turn the ball over, don’t commit any stupid penalties, and execute the fundamentals — that’s winning football.

If we want to convince voters that the Democratic Party is a dangerous collection of fringe kooks — which, of course, they are — then it behooves us to avoid acting like fringe kooks ourselves. And you can already see how this pays off: Chuck Schumer actually did the right thing for once in his life, and it’s driving the AOC wing of the Democratic Party berserk.



 

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Chuck Chickens Out: No Schumer Shutdown, CR Will (Barely) Pass Senate

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Because you’ve probably already seen the news elsewhere, permit me to begin by saying that Chuck Schumer may be the leading cause of anti-Semitism in America. Everyone who knows me knows that I am a righteous Gentile, the exact opposite of a Jew-hater, a philo-Semite who is more fanatically Zionist than Bibi Netanyahu. But when I contemplate the profound dishonesty of Chuck Schumer . . . Well, it occurs to me that anti-Semitic prejudice didn’t just magically materialize out of the ether; Schumer is the embodiment of every hateful stereotype, and actually looks like a cartoon in Der Stürmer. Some pious rabbi needs to talk to senior officials of the Anti-Defamation League about their Chuck Schumer problem. The man is becoming a shanda fur die goyim.

With that preamble, now time for the news:

On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared that he will not vote against moving forward with a Republican-backed stopgap bill to avert a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.
The announcement, in which Schumer criticized President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort led by Elon Musk, marked an abrupt turnaround. Just one day ago, the top Senate Democrat insisted the Republican majority did not have enough votes for the House-passed continuing resolution to clear a key procedural hurdle.
“While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse. … I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor.
He added later: “I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country, to minimize the harms to the American people. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.” . . .
The Democrat leader’s statement came after a Senate Democrat meeting in which reporters said they could hear Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) shouting about a shutdown.

Speaking of shouting about a shutdown, I had a rather heated phone call last week with a young friend, who unwisely spends too much of his time in the online MAGA echo chamber, and was therefore pro-shutdown.

Look, it’s not as if I’m a squishy RINO sellout. I just happen to be about 25 years older than my young friend, so I have some institutional memory on this topic. Well do I remember the fierce budget battles between Gingrich-led congressional Republicans and Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s, when “government shutdown” first became a headline, and Republicans took a severe public-relations beating, only to fold their cards because Bob Dole couldn’t keep Senate Republicans in line.

This has always been the big problem facing the conservative movement. Every time we get a GOP House majority, we are confronted by the problem of the Senate filibuster. Unless Republicans can get to 60 votes in the Senate, they must negotiate with the Democrats to be able to pass anything, and so the Freedom Caucus types eventually have to accept a deal that is antithetical to their principles. Personally, I agree with Grover Norquist’s most famous quote: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” But that doesn’t change the reality of how legislation gets passed, nor does it change the political calculus of how to maintain a Republican congressional majority. Having finally gotten Trump elected to a second term, the clock is now ticking down to the 2026 midterms, and it will be some kind of miracle if we can stop Democrats from taking over Congress again. The last thing we need, at a time when the GOP is running the whole show in D.C., is to have a government shutdown, which will be perceived (by the moderate “swing” voters, at least) as evidence that Republicans aren’t competent enough to do basic “keep the trains running on time” governance.

So I found myself raising my voice in last week’s phone conversation with my young friend, who can’t see it from this kind of long-term big-picture perspective. Experience proves that we cannot suddenly change everything in Washington; conservatives must build an effective governing majority, and then proceed step-by-step through the legislative process. This kind of patient labor strikes the young hotspurs as timid, lacking the kind of a revolutionary excitement they crave. But we must remind the callow youth that they stand on the shoulders of giants, being heirs to a movement that began long before they were born. It was during the historical apogee of liberal prestige — when FDR’s New Deal commanded the allegiance of an overwhelming majority — that a tiny handful of dissenters organized what became the conservative movement in America. Hayek, Kirk, Weaver, Chambers, Regnery, Buckley — by the early 1950s, the torch had been lit, and was passed along from Taft to Goldwater to Reagan. Alas, we have lost much that ought to have been conserved, and yet despite such defeats, nevertheless the fight continues.

Pardon that digression, but there are too many people on “our” side who are encouraging an irresponsible attitude toward the current situation, and I just want everybody to calm down about it. Let the Democrats stir outrage among the kook fringe on their side, appealing to the fathomless ignorance of their voters. Back to the news:

The Senate needs three-fifths majority — or 60 votes — to invoke cloture and overcome a filibuster on the GOP’s six-month continuing resolution. Because Republicans have a 53-47 majority, they cannot clear that threshold without some kind of bipartisan agreement. The spending legislation will need only a simple majority to prevail in a final vote. . . .
It was not immediately clear how many Democrats or independents will join Schumer, though his opposition to a shutdown may signal better odds for the Republican continuing resolution. Still, some on the Left have expressed stern disapproval of the plan.
Many Democrats had previously released statements claiming they would resist the GOP measure. Prior to Schumer, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) was the sole Democrat to openly state that he would not support blocking the Republican stopgap bill. . . .
One Republican — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — signaled that he will vote against the bill. However, that does not necessarily mean he would oppose breaking the filibuster. . . .
The GOP-led House passed a 99-page continuing resolution, which provides funds to various federal agencies and programs through September 30, via a 217-213 vote on Tuesday. All but one Republican and a single Democrat — Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) — supported the measure. The rest of the Democrats and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) opposed the bill.

There was a parade of Democratic senators on Twitter yesterday declaring that they would vote against the CR, but the final vote — i.e., yea or nay on the passage of the bill — isn’t the issue. It’s the cloture vote that is the hurdle. If all 53 Republicans vote for cloture, and Chuck Schumer can deliver six Democrat “yea” votes, then when you add J.D. Vance’s tiebreaking vote, that’s the 60 votes needed to end the filibuster. Once that’s done, getting 51 votes for passage won’t be difficult.

If we can trust Schumer when he says he is now against the shutdown, that means he’ll find a half-dozen Democrats to “walk the plank” for the sake of avoiding a shutdown (for which Schumer apparently sees that Democrats would be blamed). That buys him another six months to try to work up some kind of new wicked scheme, and I hope the ADL will intervene to stop him, because otherwise this living Der Stürmer caricature might keep stirring up Jew-hatred past the point of no return.

Now, about those Puerto Rican stereotypes . . .



 

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House Passes Spending Bill After Democrat (Allegedly) Pulls Fire Alarm

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It’s always “allegedly” with these people:

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) allegedly pulled a fire alarm in the United States Capitol complex moments before the House was scheduled to vote on a bill preventing a government shutdown, according to the House Administration Committee.
U.S. Capitol Police and the House Administration Committee, which oversees House operations and Capitol security, are investigating. . . .
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) gave a long filibuster speech minutes later as Democrats attempted to delay the vote on a 45-day extension of government funding. The bill eventually passed by a large margin after the incident.
Rep. Jim Banks is among those calling for Bowman’s arrest, tweeting the possibility that Bowman’s actions could be part of a conspiracy among Democrats.

J6 protesters were sentenced to years in federal prison for “interrupting official proceedings,” and yet a Democrat thinks he can pull a fire alarm to stop a congressional vote. “Allegedly,” I hasten to add. Before the House overwhelmingly passed its bill, 335-91, Mitch McConnell had already announced that Senate Republicans would vote for the House version, rather than the garbage “compromise” bill that Chuck Schumer wanted the Senate to pass instead. So this looks like a win — even though my podcast partner John Hoge is ready for a shutdown at his contracting job (building space robots for NASA). We’ll see . . .



 

$3.5 Trillion = Zero-Point-Zero Dollars?

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Look, I’m no expert in math, but you’re never going to convince me that the cost of a $3.5 trillion legislative package is zero:

In recent weeks, the Biden administration has been slammed for claiming the $3.5 budget reconciliation packages “costs zero dollars.”
On Monday, the president said once again that the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill as well as reconciliation are both somehow paid for.
Hours later, during her daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made a similar point when pressed on whether the president admitted the bill didn’t cost zero when he said it would be less than he initially proposed.
“What we’re talking about is how much the top line investments are — which are all paid for,” Psaki said, referencing the $3.5 price tag. “So therefore, it costs zero, no matter what the cost or size of the top line investments are, we have ways to pay for it.”
Psaki added that the plan will be paid for by asking corporations and people of the highest incomes to “cover the cost of these necessary investments” through higher tax rates.
When asked one more time if the reconciliation budget costs zero dollars, Psaki admitted “the plan costs nothing for the American people who make less than $400,000.”

“Necessary investments” = a flaming dumpster full of socialist crap.

The speech that Biden read from his TelePrompter today was a gigantic stack of lies, which could not deceive anyone with the most rudimentary understanding of congressional procedure and the federal budget. Biden (or rather, his speechwriters) insisted that Republicans are to blame for Congress failing to raise the debt ceiling. In fact, Democrats could do this without a single GOP vote, using the same “reconciliation process” they’re trying to use to ram their $3.5 trillion — excuse me, I actually meant to say, zero dollar — spending package through Congress.

Mitch McConnell has made this clear, and he’s got the Republican Senate caucus lined up in solidarity, so that even the weakest RINOs aren’t flinching in the face of criticism from Biden, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and all their media henchpeople. Cocaine Mitch to Sleepy Joe:

“Dear President Biden:
“For many years, our working relationship has been defined not only by our strong disagreements, but also by mutual transparency and respectful candor. I write in that spirit to express concern that our nation is sleepwalking toward significant and avoidable danger because of confusion and inaction from the Speaker of the House and the Senate Democratic Leader concerning basic governing duties.
“Since mid-July, Republicans have clearly stated that Democrats will need to raise the debt limit on their own. All year, your party has chosen to pursue staggering, “transformational” spending through unprecedented use of the party-line reconciliation process. Democrats inherited bipartisan trends from COVID relief to appropriations but have chosen to govern alone. Even now, with Americans already facing painful inflation, Democrats are preparing another staggering taxing and spending spree without any Republican input or support.
“Bipartisanship is not a light switch that Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer may flip on to borrow money and flip off to spend it. Republicans’ position is simple. We have no list of demands. For two and a half months, we have simply warned that since your party wishes to govern alone, it must handle the debt limit alone as well.
“As you and I know from shared Senate experience, this is not unusual. The debt limit is often a partisan vote during times of unified government. In 2003, 2004, and 2006, Mr. President, you joined Senate Democrats in opposing debt limit increases and made Republicans do it ourselves. You explained on the Senate floor that your ‘no’ votes did not mean you wanted the majority to let the country default, but rather that the President’s party had to take responsibility for a policy agenda which you opposed. Your view then is our view now.
“There is one difference between then and now: Leader Schumer requested and won new powers to repeatedly reuse the fast-track, party-line reconciliation process. As a result, Senate Democrats do not need Republican cooperation in any shape or form to do their job. Democrats do not need our consent to set a vote at 51 instead of 60. Nonpartisan experts confirm that Senate Democrats have every necessary tool to pass a standalone debt limit increase through reconciliation and enough time to do it before late October. As I have warned for months, this is the path they will need to take.
“Congressional Democrats have wasted weeks complaining that this relatively brief process would inconvenience their floor schedules. Mr. President, as you know as a Senate veteran, that is not an excuse; it is just a complaint. Republicans will not build Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer a shortcut around procedural hurdles they can clear on their own so they have a more convenient path to jam us with a partisan taxing and spending spree.
“Mr. President, I have relayed this reality to your Democratic lieutenants for two and a half months. My concern for our country is that Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi have done nothing. Either the Democratic leaders simply cannot govern or they would rather play chicken with the U.S. economy than accept reality.
“Your Democratic majorities have no plan of their own to avoid default. On Thursday, we narrowly avoided a shutdown by a few hours because Senate Democrats wasted weeks on theatrics before accepting reality. The American people cannot afford the same rudderless drift toward danger with respect to the full faith and credit of our nation.
“Mr. President, I respectfully submit that it is time for you to engage directly with congressional Democrats on this matter. Your lieutenants in Congress must understand that you do not want your unified Democratic government to sleepwalk toward an avoidable catastrophe when they have had nearly three months’ notice to do their job.”

Translation: “You’re on your own, pal.”




 

Everybody Loves the $3.5 Trillion Boondoggle, Says Nancy Pelosi’s Pollster

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Nancy Pelosi’s massive spending bill is very popular, according to no less an authority on public opinion than . . . Nancy Pelosi:

New Poll: Overwhelming Majority of Americans
Support Build Back Better Act
An overwhelming majority of Americans, independents, and even four-in-ten Republicans back President Biden and House Democrats’ plan to cut taxes for the middle class, lower costs for working families, create more jobs, and sustain economic growth for years to come.
New polling from Navigator Research shows high support for the Build Back Better Act with support from:

— 66 percent of Americans
— 61 percent of Independents
— 39 percent of Republicans

Democrats believe we face an urgent choice between keeping an economy that serves the wealthiest and biggest corporations – or finally give middle class families a fair shot. It turns out the American people agree.

Does anyone older than 12 actually believe this? Because it doesn’t take much effort to discover that this poll was published by something called “Navigator Research,” which describes itself thus:

In a world where the news cycle is the length of a tweet, our leaders often lack the real-time public-sentiment analysis to shape the best approaches to talking about the issues that matter the most. Navigator is designed to act as a consistent, flexible, responsive tool to inform policy debates by conducting research and reliable guidance to inform allies, elected leaders, and the press. Navigator is a project led by pollsters from Global Strategy Group and GBAO along with an advisory committee, including: Andrea Purse, progressive strategist; Arkadi Gerney, The Hub Project; Joel Payne, The Hub Project; Christina Reynolds, EMILY’s List; Delvone Michael, Working Families; Felicia Wong, Roosevelt Institute; Mike Podhorzer, AFL-CIO; Jesse Ferguson, progressive strategist; Navin Nayak, Center for American Progress Action Fund; Stephanie Valencia, EquisLabs; and Melanie Newman, Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

GBAO is a firm founded by four Democratic political operatives, while Global Strategy Group “began as a Democratic polling firm operating predominantly in the New York market.” To put it bluntly, everybody involved in this poll is a partisan hack, and here is the question on which the “overwhelming support” numbers are based:

As you may know, President Biden and Democrats have proposed new legislation to provide paid family and medical leave, establish a universal Pre-K program, expand Medicare coverage for seniors to include dental, vision, and hearing coverage, lower health care costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, provide tax breaks for clean energy, and expand the Child Tax Credit for most families with children. Do you support or oppose this legislation?

In other words, “Do you want the government to give you a bunch of free stuff?” To which everybody answers, “Free stuff? Gimme! Gimme!”

You might get different answers if you asked other questions, such as:

  1. Do you have any fucking clue how much $3.5 trillion is?
  2. Where the hell are we going to get $3.5 trillion to pay for this?
  3. The U.S. national debt is currently $28 trillion. The most recent year the federal government had a balanced budget was 1998. This crazy pile of crap Nancy Pelosi is trying to ram through Congress will permanently bankrupt America. Do you support or oppose this?

Now, some would say that asking such questions might be somewhat biased, but is it any more biased than Nancy Pelosi’s poll asking people if they want a bunch of free stuff from the government, without even mentioning the disastrous fiscal consequences of this legislation?

Read that Pelosi poll question again — it doesn’t even mention the $3.5 trillion price tag. The idea that policy decisions should be made on the basis of such dishonest polling by partisan hacks is insane.




 

Worst. Omnibus. Ever.

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How bad is the $1.3 trillion “omnibus” deal Congress passed yesterday? It’s an abomination, a swindle, a political failure, a fiscal catastrophe, a crime against God and man — an omnibus that will live in infamy.

Mitch McConnell and the other so-called “Republican leaders” in Congress who “negotiated” this disaster do not deserve to be in public office. They deserve to be in Guantanamo Bay, subjected to waterboarding or whatever. Here’s the Senate roll call so you know who to hate. In the House, 90 Republicans voted “no,” and you can find the roll call here to see how your representative voted.

One of the “arguments” (actually, excuses) offered in defense of this corrupt pork-laden deal is that it increases funding for the military. In other words, we are expected to believe, it is patriotic for Republicans to betray the voters who elected them. As bogus as this excuse is in terms of policy, however, it’s absolute folly as politics. This “we-support-our-troops” defense of the budget disaster will also be exploited by Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer who not only got a GOP-approved patriotism certificate from this deal, but also got Republicans to abandon any pretense that they ever intend to do anything to stop the immigration invasion. It was a complete sellout by the GOP, as Dan Stein says:

“This omnibus was an appropriate vehicle to provide full funding for the construction of a border wall — an essential tool for regaining control of our borders and stopping illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and terrorism. Instead, it contains a paltry $1.6 billion for repairs, drones, and pedestrian fencing — no wall construction. Even worse, the measure explicitly restricts funding for any of President Trump’s border wall prototypes, only allowing spending for designs deployed before the prototypes were constructed. If Congressional leadership told the president he was getting money for his signature campaign promise, he was lied to.
“And while adequate funding for the wall was not included, powerful business interests are inappropriately using the must-pass spending bill to expand their access to cheap foreign labor. Congressional leadership included a provision in the omnibus that allows the Department of Homeland Security to double the number of H-2B visas available in the current fiscal year. Opening the door for a significant increase in guest workers is not only unwarranted, but harmful to the interests of American workers. Moreover, this controversial provision has no place in a spending bill and should instead be debated openly along with other unsettled immigration matters after the government is funded. . . .
“The bottom line is this: there are no immigration-related provisions in the omnibus that are consistent with what President Trump and congressional Republicans told the American people they would do when they were sent to Washington.”

Everybody who voted for President Trump has been stabbed in the back by the Republican “leadership” in Congress. At this point, I don’t know why anyone should care if Democrats win the November midterms. If the GOP is so worthless, why should conservatives even bother voting?