The agreement announced Sunday averts a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and pushes final decisions until after the November election. Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest shortly after a failed vote last week in the House.

with leadership agreeing to extend funding into mid-December. That gives the current Congress the ability to fashion a full-year spending bill after the Nov. 5 election, rather than push that responsibility to the next Congress and president.

Well, that’s not good. Expect a shutdown if the GOP loses the presidency.

  • @[email protected]
    18•21 hours ago

    They are going to have a government shutdown for Christmas and the first week of the new year? You won’t even be able to tell because everyone is on vacation then anyway.

    • abff08f4813cOP
      12•19 hours ago

      Actually there’d be quite a few unhappy families as paycheques get delayed over the holidays for those working as civil servants, in military, etc. As far as I know that’s only happened twice - in the 1995-1996 winter holidays and the 2018-2019 winter holidays.

      And of course it’d start to get felt more generally if a resolution doesn’t come in early January, and could cast a pall over the inauguration.

      Quite coincidentally, the one in 1996 ended on Jan 6, 1996. Makes me wonder what will happen on Jan 6, 2025 if the shutdown continues - who pays for the National Guard folks, Capitol police officers, and so on?

      • skulblaka
        2•6 hours ago

        Makes me wonder what will happen on Jan 6, 2025 if the shutdown continues - who pays for the National Guard folks, Capitol police officers, and so on?

        This is a really big, serious problem that I didn’t even think about at first. Holy shit. Dollars to donuts this was a major consideration in the timing.

  • @LovingHippieCat
    9•21 hours ago

    Or it gives the current congress the possibility of trying to fuck with the next congress if democrats flip the house and keep the senate.

    • @FlowVoidEnglish
      1•7 hours ago

      If Republicans are planning to shut government and anger the public so that a new Democratic Congress can solve the problem immediately after they take over, thus earning the gratitude of all Americans… I’d call that a massive GOP self-own. So it’s definitely possible.

  • Drusas
    5•21 hours ago

    That is what you call intentionally trying to cause chaos before the presidential transition. And nobody should accept it.

    • FiveEnglish
      1•19 hours ago

      Manufacturing Consent has this to say about PBS:

      Globalization, along with deregulation and national budgetary pressures, has also helped reduce the importance of noncommercial media in country after country. This has been especially important in Europe and Asia, where public broadcasting systems were dominant (in contrast with the United States and Latin America). The financial pressures on public broadcasters has forced them to shrink or emulate the commercial systems in fund~raising and programming, and some have been fully commercialized by policy change or privatization. The global balance of power has shifted decisively toward commercial systems.

      James Ledbetter points out that in the United States, under incessant right-wing political pressure and financial stringency, “the 90s have seen a tidal wave of commercialism overtake public broadcasting,” with public broadcasters" rushing as fast as they can to merge their services with those offered by commercial networks." And in the process of what Ledbetter calls the “mailing” of public broadcasting, its already modest differences from the commercial networks have almost disappeared. Most important, in their programming “they share either the avoidance or the defanging of contemporary political controversy, the kind that would bring trouble from powerful patrons.”