Thursday, October 3, 2013

WTF is going on in Washington?

In much the same spirit as the current shutdown in Washington, the furloughs have given me enough time on my hands to start blogging.  Yeah, it's like that.  And I'm going to keep doing it until I get my way.  It's just that in this case, "getting my way" means letting me go back to work and earning a paycheck.  Until then, I can keep crankin' this stuff out.  You've seen it before. I probably won't like this any more than you do.

So, today's topic is inspired by a friend who asked me to summarize what the heck is going on in Washington right now.  The text of my e-mail to her is copied below:

Okay, so here's the breakdown in a nutshell.

The whole thing starts because we have this thing called the anti-deficiency act.  Basically, it's a very old law, but it says that you can't spend money in the federal government unless it comes from a congressional appropriation.  (There are also some areas that involve "non-appropriated funds" but those aren't what the problem is, now.)

1.  So, basically, you can't obligate money on behalf of the federal government unless congress says you can.

The congress and the president agree on a budget.  That hasn't happened in a while. So, what happens if you can't agree on a budget is you might just agree to pay for things the way you have been, which is called a continuing resolution.  That's how we've been paying for our government for the past several years.  If you can't pass a budget OR agree to a continuing resolution, then congress has not approved a plan to spend money.

2.  Congress has not approved a budget, and they are not agreeing to a continuing resolution.

Why?  Because the republicans in congress don't like the affordable care act.  (Obamacare.)  They have tried, I believe, 40 different times in just the past couple of years to repeal it or repeal parts of it.  Unfortunately, they control the House of Representatives, but they don't control the Senate.  Also, the president can veto laws, and you have to have a supermajority (two-thirds or 67%) if you want to override the presidential veto or if you want to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.

These are not the rules just for Obamacare.  These are the rules for every law that has ever been passed in the history of the United States.

Because the republicans have control of the house, but not the Senate, and they are nowhere near a supermajority, they have said they refuse to implement a budget unless the implementation of the Affordable Care Act is delayed.  (The number they throw around is they want it delayed by 1 year.  No doubt, to try and mount some other attempts at defeating it legislatively.)

The president refuses to delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

3.  So, because the president won't delay implementation of ACA, the Republicans are refusing to pass a budget.

What's happening now is that non-essential services are just shut down.  The workers (like me) are home without pay.  At some future date, they may, like they did in the past, go back and pay us for our missed work.  However, they may not.  They've done it in the past, but who knows.  Federal workers just got furloughed over the Summer and no, we did not get back-paid for those days.  We just lost them.  That was unprecedented.  So, saying that we will get paid for these days just because it happened in the past is not at all a safe bet.

Essential services, it's even crazier.  Those folks HAVE TO report to work, but they can't be paid.  When congress eventually agrees on a budget, they will be paid, but until that happens, they won't.  Previous shutdowns have gone a month or two at the most.  So, it's not going to be pleasant.  That's a long time for your typical American family with a mortgage to go without any income.

Moderate Republicans (like McCain or Nunes) think this is crazy.  But for the most part, the Tea Party Republicans wield a lot of power.  They're not the majority of Republicans, but when a Republican crosses them, they mount a primary challenge.  (So, when the moderate republican runs for re-election, the tea party sponsors a more extreme Republican instead and keep the moderate republican for running for office in the general election.)  In that way, a small band of pretty extreme folks are able to get the entire Republican party to toe the line.

What the Republicans needed was a message to sell to the people.  They think they found one.  It basically goes, "the president will negotiate with syria and iran, but he won't negotiate with Republicans."

So far, it's working as far as solidifying their position with the Republican base.

Trouble is, it's not really a good argument.  Sort of like I go to a restaurant, I order a bunch of food, I eat it all.  The bill comes and I say, "Unless you give me free dessert, I won't pay the bill."

The restaurant owner says, "What?  No, that's not the way you do things.  You're responsible for this bill.  You need to pay it."

And in response, I tell the owner, "Well... geez, you negotiate with your bread vendor, you negotiate with your wine merchant, but you won't negotiate with me!!!"

The basic idea is that if the Republicans are willing to compromise (in this case by passing a budget... which is their job and isn't a concession at all), the president should be willing to compromise (in this case, by taking a law that was passed and just not doing it.)

Remember, the Republicans in this case have tried on about 40 previous occasions to repeal Obamacare or parts of it.  It didn't work, so they're basically saying that the whole process by which laws are decided didn't work for them.  So, they're going to shut down the entire government because the way the system works didn't go their way.

If you include the original passage of Obamacare and the Supreme Court challenge, they've lost this fight 42 straight times.  So, their position is basically that the system, which works for every other law in this country, needs to be abandoned, and that it's fair to shut down the entire government because government by representative democracy didn't produce a result they like.

What part of the government do these Republicans work in?  The representative democracy part.  The Senate and House are how we pass laws.

It's this attempt to draw equivalency between the two positions that I quibble with.  As a friend of mine said, "If somebody comes to you and says they want to kill your family, you don't negotiate with them to only kill half your family in the spirit of compromise."

If you accept the premise that our elected officials should shut down the entire government every time there's a single law they dislike, (but that they can't change through the democratic process), then I guess the Republican position seems reasonable.

I think it would lead to anarchy.  For instance, the Democrats, after decades of trying and failing to get onerous gun-control legislation, could simply shut down the government unless the President "negotiates" with them on the subject.

People who want school prayer could shut down the government.  People who don't want school prayer could shut down the government.  Basically, anybody in the country who could think of a single law they didn't like could shut down the government.

Trouble is, we have a method by which we change laws.  In fact, the Republicans are pretty familiar with it.  They've used that method 40 times to try and repeal Obamacare.  It's just that sometimes you don't get to get something just because you want it.  There's a process, and when everything was said and done, that process has told the Republicans "no".  40 times.  Then the Supreme Court weighed in and told them "no" one more time.

After that, you need to either try the process a 41st time, or you need to accept that things aren't going to go your way right now and you need to move on.  At least I think most people should accept it.  Or... well... you can hold nutrition for infants hostage.

Meanwhile, to make things even more complicated, the Republicans are floating bills that would fund PARTS of government, but not others.  For instance, one bill would keep national parks open.

The reason they're doing this is that they can then fund the parts of the government they like (like national defense) or parts that are pissing people off (like national parks) and play politics with the parts that republicans don't like (like WIC, meals on wheels and headstart.)

The president is saying no to this piecemeal attempt at funding the government.  He says they need to give him a bill that funds everything or nothing.

Both sides are sorta wrong on that.  It's a normal part of the legislative process to fund the government bit by bit.  Typically we get a budget and 13 separate appropriation bills, and that's how our government is funded.  But I think the president has a valid point:  once the Republicans fund the parts of the government that people care about and which are most visible, they have no incentive to be reasonable on the rest.

On that issue, who is more wrong?  I'm gonna say maybe the president is a little more wrong than the Republicans, but I chalk that whole thing up to the way politics operate.

Shutting down the government because you disagree with one law?  That's not the way politics operate in anything but a banana republic.