Democrats in Washington have softened their early opposition to the Republicans’ tiered approach to government spending, signaling a new openness to supporting the House GOP bill and averting a government shutdown at week’s end.
In a Monday letter to House Democrats, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and his top deputies suggested that Democrats may support the Republicans’ short-term funding bill to keep the government open into early next year — a sharp change of tone that could pave the way for easy passage when the bill hits the chamber floor on Tuesday.
Joined by Reps. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), Jeffries stopped short of saying party leaders are ready to endorse the GOP proposal, known as a continuing resolution (CR), which was introduced by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) over the weekend.
But he also didn’t rule it out.
I don’t really see another option, unfortunately — the alternative is just going to be a shutdown, given Republicans don’t know what compromise is. And lots of people will suffer if one happens, likely for no material gain.
Let’s pretend a shutdown happens, followed by, “Democrats present bill to fund the government. Republicans reject it!”
I get that this is people’s lives we’re talking about, but Republicans are trying to present it like, “See? Look what you make me do!” They’re abusers, and they should have to own what they’re doing to people’s lives. It should not be Democrats’ responsibility to always bail them out.
Yeah if they want democratic support they should present something that democrats want to support. This whole bullshit of “well if you don’t suck it up now the government shuts down” is just emboldening them every time it works. And remember they’ll tell their constituents that the government only shuts down when democrats are in charge.
Democrats do want to support this bill. It is a clean CR, which is what they’ve called for repeatedly.
It is unconventional because it has two deadlines instead of one, but that does not significantly conflict with the goals of Democrats.
Ok I had been under the impression that it was another of the “we slash the budget in exchange to buy time so we can agree to slash the budget”
I agree! But they’ve shown repeatedly that they’re unwilling to compromise, and the American people have shown that they don’t care that much about Republican unwillingness to compromise at least with the Democrats (remains to be seen about the Speaker fiasco). Given that, it’s better to keep things running and keep people paid.
I submit to you, that’s because Democrats have a habit of bailing them out “for the good of the people.” But what if the best thing is to stop bailing them out? Americans have gotten complacent relying on the remaining adults in the room, and too many think the Republicans are still a functional party. Republicans, just as easily as Democrats, can stop this madness by compromising, instead of trying to tie extremist policies to the spending bills.
There’s been shutdowns before. It’s not really leverage when so much is on the line.
That being said, I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I’d rather people not lose their jobs due to political wrangling.
Same. But it’s mainly Republicans that are instigating the problem by putting forth these ideologically-tainted budgets and candidates they know have no chance.