Threats of Government Shutdowns have become the norm in America to impose political agendas. This political theater negatively affects every day Americans.
The U.S. Government Shutdown was averted, for ~45 more days.
On Sunday, October 1, 2023 the United States of America woke up to a still-non-shut U.S. Government. Republican-led House of Representatives had a vote on Saturday night to keep the Government open for another 45 days, and this was quickly endorsed by the Democrat-led Senate, and signed into law before the midnight deadline by Democrat President Biden. Good news, crisis averted? Not quite, let’s explore the facts.
As promised, I am writing a follow up to the almost-Government Shutdown issue that could have put millions of Americans in a very precarious situation. Sadly, I can bet you both my arms and a foot that there are millions more Americans who had no idea what had happened in the last 48 hours… nor do they might even care. Event thought this would have been an enormous disaster whether if they work for the Federal Government or not. And that is a scary thought, yet it is a very sad reality.
What happened?
If I could summarize it with one term it would be “Political-Theater.” I’ve mentioned in the previous article how both the Republican and Democratic parties are polarized. Further, the Republicans are fragmented inside their own party. One of the variables to keep the government open was how would the current Speaker of the House, Representative (Republican) Kevin McCarthy would act at the 11th hour. Well, as predicted, he got the help he needed from the Democrats in order to keep the Government open. He was not happy about this course of action, but he had no option.
If you remember from the previous article, there were 21 Republican Representatives who essentially held the entire country hostage, risking the well-being of millions of Americans to push their political agenda. There is a time and a place for everything, and the 11th hour when millions of Americans could be severely negatively affected is not the time nor place. That is why there was a vote for the “motion to suspend the rules and pass, as amended” the opportunity to buy more time to continue discussions in Capitol Hill. This bill HR 5860 allowed the government to remain open by extending the timeline for dialog.
The 21 MAGA Republicans, led by FL Representative (Republican) Matt Gaetz voted to NOT allow this discussion from happening last week, hence the looming shutdown. But finally last night, the final tally passed with 335 “YEA” votes, against 91 “NAY” votes, and 7 “non-Votes.”
In order to understand the polarization AND the possibility to work together on the House of Representatives, this is the final breakout:
Republicans: 126 YEA 90 NAY 5 Non-Vote
Democrats: 209 YEA 1 NAY 2 Non-Vote
In case you are wondering who is the only Democrat who did not vote Yeah is Representative (Democrat) Mike Quigley, because the legislation failed to include aid for Ukraine. And we’ll talk more about that in a moment.
The “stop-gap” measure that was voted to continue having the Government open for about 45 more days was not without actually having a few concessions in order to reach the deadline. One of those was the financial aid to Ukraine. For context Ukraine is not a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) ally, which would require Article 5 involvement – a.k.a. fighting against whomever Ukraine is fighting. But rather Ukraine is a NATO partner, which falls under Article 4 – a.k.a. “We help you not get beat up but, you are pretty much on your own.” And the Ukrainians have been fighting on their own. Russia crossed Ukraine’s border on February 24, 2022. That’s 584 days (1 year, 7 months, 1 week) of fighting a war.
The aid to Ukraine is to prevent the conflict from expanding into the region. In a very oversimplified way, it is preventing World War III (WW-III) from occurring. I’ll write a full article on that. You can get some additional context on my series about the Ukraine-Russia conflict on this very site (www.halflifecrisis.com). And the reason why they are intertwined, is because the world is connected in so many levels. It can be mind-bending, but that is the reality. I am very aware it can be overwhelming to even think about it.
But the fact is that if we (you, or anybody else) is happy to be willfully ignorant about the reality, then somebody who is actually paying attention could become the difference or the demise to all those who are otherwise distracted. That is another reason why I write these articles, and I have written a few manuscripts who will be released in (hopefully) in the near term.
As I have been speaking with people from all walks of life. A lot of them seem very misinformed. Worst, many don’t seem to care about why this is important, yet they vote. Others care a lot about the country and have their heart in the right place, but their perception is deceived with skewed facts. I just try to do my part while in any way I can, hence I use my platform (however small at this point) to try to illustrate the importance of these events in our history.
The noise of dissent.
I watched several interviews with Kevin McCarthy and with Matt Gaetz… both Republican Representatives who are pretty much at wat against each other. Gaetz who will start working on ousting McCarthy argues that the latter did not play ball to the deal they made at the beginning of the year. In case you were not tracking, the so called MAGA Republicans in the House were making it difficult (understatement of the year) to McCarthy to get enough votes to be the Speaker of the House from the very start.
Gaetz also threated McCarthy that if he worked with the Democrats and not let the Government Shut down, then he (Gaetz) would start the process to get McCarthy to vacate his post. That is also interesting, because when Gaetz was confronted with the fact he likely does not have the votes to do so, he just attempted some deflection to the facts. But the other facts are that the Democrats do not want McCarthy as the Speaker of the House either, especially because the House has been focusing mostly on trying to Impeach Biden and a lot of political theater than actually passing any actual viable legislation. To oversimply, we almost got the government to shut down because of this inability to bring the parties together.
The Democrats in a way will be forced to look from a far how the show will unfold on the other side of the aisle. Since the Republicans hold the majority, it is not really up to the Democrats who will be the next Speaker of the House. And McCarthy has not shown to be in control of his own caucus. This is also very disturbing because the Speaker of the House is the THIRD person in line to the Presidency of the United States. This power succession goes like this, The President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House.
Fortunately, although under a lot of political pressure, McCarthy did the right thing and sided wit the Democrats in order to keep the Government open. Remember what I said in the last article. In this case the Senate introduces, debates and, passed the bill. Then this bill goes to the Senate where it gets its own debate, and when it passes it goes to the President to sign into law.
Of course that Congress is a lot more complex than this single example. There are different bills that also originate from the Senate, but that also means that the House will have some hand in the process before it becomes a law. At some point I will write about the intricacies of Congress, because there is a lot to discuss. But for now let’s just stablish that both the House of Representatives, and the Senate need to work together to complete a “legislative product” – even though they are two separate government bodies under the same Legislative Branch.
In the meantime, although we averted the worst part of the situation – having millions of Americans in a precarious financial situation because of a Government Shutdown… we are not out of the woods yet. The new deadline under the HR 5860 signed by President Biden is set to November 17, 2023. There is still plenty to be discussed in Capitol Hill. And yes, you can bet I will write another article about it.
What is next?
We can only hope that our elected representatives will reach an agreement that help us all Americans. However, this help is a lot more complex than stuff that happens inside our borders. Why? Because this country is placed in a planet with ~200 other countries. And like them or dislike them, know them or being oblivious to them; it does not matter. All these countries, big or small affect the United States of America in many ways.
We are likely to see more Political Theater, this time with FL REP. (R) Matt Gaetz forcing a vote to outs the Speaker of the House, REP (R) Kevin McCarthy. And I would not be surprised if that is also going to eat a lot of bandwidth and precious time during this extension. And I would not be further surprised if we are having a similar conversation about a looming government shutdown coming mid-November.
In the meantime, I am grateful that I did not have to manage a lot of emergency financial situations for my Sailors, and many other people working in Government did not have to do the same – you know, help them weather this terrible financial storm. And the same can be said about the United States as a whole. Because if we would have shut down, our debt and credit rating in the world would have taken a plunge.
Here, you can see how all countries credit are ranked:
Credit Rating – Countries – List (tradingeconomics.com)
Yes, much like an individual credit can go good or bad, the same happens to a country. A Government Shutdown would be akin as being late on payments, and making a person looking for a loan a credit risk. That is bad in many ways, for instance less opportunity to borrow, and higher interests in repaying whatever is being borrowed. And our debt is pretty high, in the trillions.
That debt level is a whole discussion to another article – and there is plenty to talk about. Because misunderstanding of this debt is what is weaponized in order to try to push some incongruent legislation. And that lack of understanding is what has become a catalyst for many elected representatives to push for unattainable, and in many instances nefarious legislation. I promise I will write more about it, because that is a very complex topic on its own – and it affect us all. For now I am just grateful that we (the USA) have some additional time to work things out. HLC