Signs of a Way Forward on Spending?
A shutdown may be averted after all.
Via AL.com (Mike Rogers says of ‘far-right wing’ of GOP: ‘You can’t get rid of them’) I was surprised to read the following from Mike Rogers (R-AL03):
Rogers said he expected a compromise that would avoid a shutdown. But he implied that the process might get stalled because of “unrealistic expectations” in the far-right wing of the Republican Party.
They might end up with a 30-day spending bill, but he said that problem won’t go away in those 30 days, because “the far-right wants to cut everything except defense and veterans’ benefits to levels seen two years ago.”
[…]
Rogers, who called himself a pragmatist, said Republicans might need “reasonable Democrats” to pass the spending bill.
Rogers has been, in the past, my Representative. Over the years AL02 and AL03 moved around (and, also, so have I) and I was in AL03 for quite a while. I would say that Rogers is a pretty conservative, fairly typical Republican. He has certainly been a supporter of Trump and the linked article underscores that he is more than happy to engage on race and gender politics.
Rogers is perhaps best known for being the Representative restrained when lunging at Matt Gaetz during the McCarthy leadership vote (Mike Rogers restrained in angry confrontation with Matt Gaetz over speaker vote).
Still, I was quite surprised to hear the above quotes on the local NPR outlet this morning, as usually at this stage of the game the parties are not inclined to reveal internal factions. This suggests that there is interest within the GOP to avoid a shutdown. Granted, it could also be an attempt to shift blame for a shutdown to the Democrats should a compromise not be reached. Still, it is striking that there is any talk of compromise at this stage.
It is even more interesting, at least to me, that Rogers is clearly identifying a faction within his own party that is the immovable piece in all of this.
That would be my Congressman Chip Roy. And if you think he is unreasonable you should read the lunatics that respond to his Facebook clips. Chip is more interested in being on television than actually accomplishing anything. He is, after all, a protege of Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton. The real sad thing, though, is that he is not the worst.
Each time R’s have forced a shut down it has hurt them politically, Rogers’ is being realistic, a rare commodity these days.
The number one problem facing this country is disproportionate rural power.
It manifests literally everywhere in the federal government.
The founders screwed up, bigly.
@Tony W:
Hey, they did pretty good for what was really the first draft of a Democratic Constitution. They made provision for amending it. They failed to anticipate the effect of parties and that their descendants would be too dumb to evolve the Constitution.
It seems they know three words and no more: default, shutdown, and woke.
@gVOR10: At least one of them knew…
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21/pdf/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21.pdf
Washington’s farewell address warned against political parties and predicted the current state of the country..
Steven:
Normally, I would strongly disapprove of these antics on the floor of The House, but in the case of Matt Gaetz, I make an exception.
To avoid a shutdown, Biden should take a border security deal, provided the goverment is funded at current levels through early 2025 with no cuts to the safety net or Ukraine aid. It should include real (and humane) border security policies, not the dumb rightwing wish list of neo-Nazi cruelty passed earlier by House Republicans.
This would help solve an issue than needs solving, placate normal Republicans, blunt a favorite Fox News talking point, and help both Biden and swing-district Democrats in their re-election bids: “A la infrastructure, here’s yet another long-needed bipartisan compromise Biden got done, where Trump and previous presidents failed.”
@DK:
Looks potentially like a good idea. Are there enough non-dumb right wing wish list neo-Nazi Republicans to work with on this or is a border security deal just another GQP bait and switch like *domestic partnerships* and a lot of other bull***t GQP proposals over the years?
@DK: I’m not sure that’s going to make much difference on the right-wing media side of things.
They’ll publish things like “150 pounds of Fentanyl seized by border agents in 2022 – why is Biden allowing so much Fentanyl into the country?” without understanding what the word “seized” means.
The Left has a tendency to slippery-slope-speculate about where some right-wing action could lead. We may tend to be alarmist but we largely don’t make things up out of whole cloth.
However, the Right just manufactures and packages bullshit from factories all over the world, and floods us with it. There are zero ramifications for dishonesty, particularly on the Right. And that’s not going to change without draconian laws for which the United States has never had the appetite.
@gVOR10:
Second draft.
The articles of confederation was the first, with it’s own set of short sighted problems.