I find this argument to be disingenuous because the truth is that the Republicans don’t have enough control to pass an appropriation bill without Democrat consent.
Telling the true story makes the Republicans look just as bad, though. The things that the Democrats are demanding are things that are obviously good and very popular. Like not making the US healthcare system even worse.
So, why distort the truth when the truth is already in the Democrats’ favor in this case?
EDIT: Since there seems to be a lot of confusion on this point, I’ll try to explain the relevant US senate rules. The reason why Republicans don’t have full control of the senate is because for most types of legislation, they need 60 votes to invoke cloture, forcing a vote (at which point only a simple majority is needed to pass the bill).
There are limited exceptions to that, including budget reconciliation bills that modify the current budget. The “Big Beautiful Bill” that they passed earlier was such a budget reconciliation bill, so it was only allowed to do things that modify the budget (some provisions they tried to include were struck down for not meeting that standard and therefore requiring 60 vote cloture).
The bill they are trying to pass now is an appropriations bill that actually funds the government, which is not an exception to the cloture rule. Their version of the bill is considered a “clean” continuing resolution because it continues funding with no modifications, but they have already modified the funding earlier with the BBB without getting Democrat approval, so the Democrats rightly don’t approve of continuing with that budget. The Democrats want Republicans to negotiate with them like they are supposed to, and to make concessions primarily on healthcare funding (which the BBB drastically cut).
From the outside, requiring a 2/3 majority to pass a budget is insane. It’s no wonder we hear of government shutdowns from the US with regularity.
We (Australia) had one federal shutdown in the 1970s and it led to a constitutional crisis, and that was because the Liberals (the conservative party) refused to vote for supply.
Since 1999 government funding automatically rolls over and is instead altered by legislation:
I don’t agree. It’s not like a case of the Democrats holding the Republicans hostage over an extreme measure of some sort. The Republicans basically did no negotiation at all. The bill proposed was so horrendous as to force a number of Democrats to hold hard. We all know if Republicans had budge just a little bit they would have passed this thing. So no I don’t agree this distorts the truth, this is the truth the Republican shut it down. It was on purpose. This was the plan.
Prior to Trump, every time a Republican president took power they would make a little speech about how “now it’s time for unity” and look sideways across the aisle at the Democrats.
With Trump that speech was more like “our political opponents, who are subhuman, can eat my fist and die.”
The part that I find disingenuous is the argument that the Republicans control every branch of government and that’s why the shutdown is their fault. The shutdown is their fault, but not for that reason.
I understand your point, but you kind of argued against yourself here:
but they have already modified the funding earlier with the BBB without getting Democrat approval, so the Democrats rightly don’t approve of continuing with that budget.
Essentially, Republicans used their majority to make changes without Democratic approval or negotiation. Now they’ve reached a point where they actually need that approval or negotiation to continue. They could easily take out the changes they made unilaterally earlier and pass this. Instead, they’re playing the blame game saying “we can’t pass this ourselves, we need Democrats to vote for it.”
That’d be like if I broke into your house, stole your TV, then said “I just need you to sign this document saying everything in your house is as it should be” and then blamed you for not signing.
It’s not easy to stand up to emotionally gratifying memes to elucidate the subtle realities of what’s actually going on. Kudos to you. I hope you have an amazing day.
This age doesn’t value reason, facts, or logic. But so many old school intellectuals think reason, facts, and logic are going to save them. They will not. It’s time to adjust your sails, because the wind has changed.
The same thing has happened several times in the past. Each time that there is a mass media revolution it comes with a surge in misinformation and emotional, populist rhetoric. Around the time of WW2 the new communication medium was radio, now it is the internet.
The shift away from reason and factuality is a transient effect. Things will swing back towards factuality as people adjust to the new medium. In the meantime, emotional, populist messages are required, but they don’t have to be false ones. There are messages that can emotionally resonate with people that are also true. Take Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, for instance.
the republicans can pass whatever bill they want that dont need a supermajority , they are currently just shutting down to avoid the epstein files, since they have MAJORITY and a couple of dinos willing to vote on bills with the gop. dems dont get to be blame this time. plus the gop dint show up in congress too.
Only due to Senate rules that they regularly like to blow up, but in this situation have decided that Senate rules are suddenly sacrosanct. Normally, they can only use reconciliation on a budget item once per year, per Senate rules, and they used that to pass One Beautiful Bill. They could nuke the rule and then do it as often as they like, but now they’re suddenly institutionalists?
Majority of us did NOT vote for that. You can say a majority of voters did, but certainly not a majority of the citizens. Each party only got about ⅕ of the populations vote. 20% isn’t a majority
If you don’t vote, you implicitly agree with whatever outcome is decided by those that do.
If you want your voice to be counted, you should go and vote.
And in saying that, I understand that some places are actively making it difficult for some people to actually submit their votes… But the 3/5ths not voting, is not accounted for by that one difficultly.
If the average American doesn’t understand it, then it is better to attempt to change that then it is to just lie about it. Lying about it makes the Democrats look like liars and cowards to those savvy enough to know the difference, when the truth makes them look plenty righteous. If they went with the true story, they would look good to those who are savvy and the summary that trickles down to the average American would still make them sound good while also teaching them to be slightly less ignorant.
60 votes are not required. That’s for cloture to end a filibuster.
The filibuster is not in the constitution nor a law, its merely a rule that can be changed at any time and the rule change itself cannot be filibustered. vance could also preside over the senate and ignore the parliamentarian.
They could if they can whip enough republicans to change the filibuster rules, or just get vance to preside over the senate and to ignore the parliamentarian. They never did that because “norms and traditions”.
But this party that’s ignoring the constitution for the past few months… and somehow “norms and traditions” suddenly matters now… 🧐
If they wanted to pass this they can change the rules which only requires a simple majority. They want to keep the current rules because it allows them to shut down the Dems when they are in power and Reps are fine with the government being shut down since their goal is to gut it anyway.
There is no reason for Reps to change the status quo, because this is what they want.
Because most Muriocans have no idea how their gov works, what is happening ATM or how it affects them… also, they do not care unless there is literally something poking them in the eye
I find this argument to be disingenuous because the truth is that the Republicans don’t have enough control to pass an appropriation bill without Democrat consent.
Telling the true story makes the Republicans look just as bad, though. The things that the Democrats are demanding are things that are obviously good and very popular. Like not making the US healthcare system even worse.
So, why distort the truth when the truth is already in the Democrats’ favor in this case?
EDIT: Since there seems to be a lot of confusion on this point, I’ll try to explain the relevant US senate rules. The reason why Republicans don’t have full control of the senate is because for most types of legislation, they need 60 votes to invoke cloture, forcing a vote (at which point only a simple majority is needed to pass the bill).
There are limited exceptions to that, including budget reconciliation bills that modify the current budget. The “Big Beautiful Bill” that they passed earlier was such a budget reconciliation bill, so it was only allowed to do things that modify the budget (some provisions they tried to include were struck down for not meeting that standard and therefore requiring 60 vote cloture).
The bill they are trying to pass now is an appropriations bill that actually funds the government, which is not an exception to the cloture rule. Their version of the bill is considered a “clean” continuing resolution because it continues funding with no modifications, but they have already modified the funding earlier with the BBB without getting Democrat approval, so the Democrats rightly don’t approve of continuing with that budget. The Democrats want Republicans to negotiate with them like they are supposed to, and to make concessions primarily on healthcare funding (which the BBB drastically cut).
The reason why 2/3 votes are required is to force budget bill that isn’t decided by just one party.
Republicans decided to create bill without including Democrats in negotiations and then expecting them to vote for it.
Like WTF?
The shutdown is 100% fault of GOP.
From the outside, requiring a 2/3 majority to pass a budget is insane. It’s no wonder we hear of government shutdowns from the US with regularity.
We (Australia) had one federal shutdown in the 1970s and it led to a constitutional crisis, and that was because the Liberals (the conservative party) refused to vote for supply.
Since 1999 government funding automatically rolls over and is instead altered by legislation:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/Powers_practice_and_procedure/Practice7/HTML/Chapter11/Appropriation_and_supply_bills
Y’all have a stupid system, change my mind.
While the GOP are bastards, it needs to be noted that the system itself is stupid.
I feel justified in commenting on US politics, given its hegemonic status over us.
When you put it that way, I’m surprised the Democrats are putting up such a fight.
I agree with blaming them, just not for the reason that they “control all three branches” because they don’t actually have unilateral control.
They do though, there are very few exceptions, and this is one, but they basically wanted to force Democrats to just comply.
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I don’t agree. It’s not like a case of the Democrats holding the Republicans hostage over an extreme measure of some sort. The Republicans basically did no negotiation at all. The bill proposed was so horrendous as to force a number of Democrats to hold hard. We all know if Republicans had budge just a little bit they would have passed this thing. So no I don’t agree this distorts the truth, this is the truth the Republican shut it down. It was on purpose. This was the plan.
Besides, Republicans do this shit every time Dems are passing a spending bill.
It’s a fair point.
Prior to Trump, every time a Republican president took power they would make a little speech about how “now it’s time for unity” and look sideways across the aisle at the Democrats.
With Trump that speech was more like “our political opponents, who are subhuman, can eat my fist and die.”
The part that I find disingenuous is the argument that the Republicans control every branch of government and that’s why the shutdown is their fault. The shutdown is their fault, but not for that reason.
I understand your point, but you kind of argued against yourself here:
Essentially, Republicans used their majority to make changes without Democratic approval or negotiation. Now they’ve reached a point where they actually need that approval or negotiation to continue. They could easily take out the changes they made unilaterally earlier and pass this. Instead, they’re playing the blame game saying “we can’t pass this ourselves, we need Democrats to vote for it.”
That’d be like if I broke into your house, stole your TV, then said “I just need you to sign this document saying everything in your house is as it should be” and then blamed you for not signing.
I think you may misunderstand what my argument is. I don’t disagree with any of what you said there.
It’s not easy to stand up to emotionally gratifying memes to elucidate the subtle realities of what’s actually going on. Kudos to you. I hope you have an amazing day.
This age doesn’t value reason, facts, or logic. But so many old school intellectuals think reason, facts, and logic are going to save them. They will not. It’s time to adjust your sails, because the wind has changed.
The same thing has happened several times in the past. Each time that there is a mass media revolution it comes with a surge in misinformation and emotional, populist rhetoric. Around the time of WW2 the new communication medium was radio, now it is the internet.
The shift away from reason and factuality is a transient effect. Things will swing back towards factuality as people adjust to the new medium. In the meantime, emotional, populist messages are required, but they don’t have to be false ones. There are messages that can emotionally resonate with people that are also true. Take Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, for instance.
the republicans can pass whatever bill they want that dont need a supermajority , they are currently just shutting down to avoid the epstein files, since they have MAJORITY and a couple of dinos willing to vote on bills with the gop. dems dont get to be blame this time. plus the gop dint show up in congress too.
Only due to Senate rules that they regularly like to blow up, but in this situation have decided that Senate rules are suddenly sacrosanct. Normally, they can only use reconciliation on a budget item once per year, per Senate rules, and they used that to pass One Beautiful Bill. They could nuke the rule and then do it as often as they like, but now they’re suddenly institutionalists?
The “truth” you’ve stated here, regardless of its basis in fact or not, is too complex for the average American.
I’m just saying. The majority of y’all voted for the leopards then bitched when the leopards ate your collective faces.
Majority of us did NOT vote for that. You can say a majority of voters did, but certainly not a majority of the citizens. Each party only got about ⅕ of the populations vote. 20% isn’t a majority
At that point I feel like we’re splitting hairs.
If you don’t vote, you implicitly agree with whatever outcome is decided by those that do.
If you want your voice to be counted, you should go and vote.
And in saying that, I understand that some places are actively making it difficult for some people to actually submit their votes… But the 3/5ths not voting, is not accounted for by that one difficultly.
That’s cute. You still think voting means anything in the US lmao
If the average American doesn’t understand it, then it is better to attempt to change that then it is to just lie about it. Lying about it makes the Democrats look like liars and cowards to those savvy enough to know the difference, when the truth makes them look plenty righteous. If they went with the true story, they would look good to those who are savvy and the summary that trickles down to the average American would still make them sound good while also teaching them to be slightly less ignorant.
Don’t they though? They have (slim) majorities in both chambers, can’t they push this through if they really wanted?
Nah mate, the bill needs 60 votes to pass the Senate
60 votes are not required. That’s for cloture to end a filibuster.
The filibuster is not in the constitution nor a law, its merely a rule that can be changed at any time and the rule change itself cannot be filibustered. vance could also preside over the senate and ignore the parliamentarian.
They could if they can whip enough republicans to change the filibuster rules, or just get vance to preside over the senate and to ignore the parliamentarian. They never did that because “norms and traditions”.
But this party that’s ignoring the constitution for the past few months… and somehow “norms and traditions” suddenly matters now… 🧐
That would require them to actually communicate with Dems, which they refuse to do.
If they wanted to pass this they can change the rules which only requires a simple majority. They want to keep the current rules because it allows them to shut down the Dems when they are in power and Reps are fine with the government being shut down since their goal is to gut it anyway.
There is no reason for Reps to change the status quo, because this is what they want.
Because most Muriocans have no idea how their gov works, what is happening ATM or how it affects them… also, they do not care unless there is literally something poking them in the eye