Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg - Will Republicans Ever Pass A Budget?
Morning all. Republicans run Washington. Presidency, Senate, House, the Supreme Court. All of it. One of their central responsibilities is to pass a budget to fund the government. By law that budget was supposed to be passed and in place on September 30th. The reason the government has shut down is that Republicans have not passed a budget, and so there is no funding for what we call the Fiscal Year 2026 budget that runs from October 1st, 2025 through September 30th of 2026.
The question I want to put on the table now is this - do we think this factious party with a madman leader can ever actually agree on a budget in the coming months? Under our current rules passing a budget requires 60 votes in the Senate, all 53 Republicans and 7 Democrats, and a simple majority in the House. Do we think that these guys can somehow strike a deal that 7 Democrats, all Congressional Rs and Trump can agree to? That has binding rules that prevent Russell Vought from just going in and doing whatever he wants with the appropriated monies - illegally, unconstitutionally - as he is doing now?
For that final budget will not only include all the incredibly unpopular things from their reconciliation bill, it will have to include ugly things Trump has done outside of Congress. So what Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, will be asked to vote for this winter includes the ruinous tariffs that have increased costs, slowed the economy are doing extraordinary harm to farmers and small businesses across the country; the forging of a massive domestic police force loyal to Trump not the Constitution; the gutting of our health care system and our public health; the ending of clean energy subsidies that have cost us good manufacturing jobs and brought much higher electricity costs; a much higher deficit that will dangerously weaken the fiscal integrity of the United States and our place in the global economy; our abandonment of Ukraine and our European allies; and the continued shifting of the tax burden of America from the wealthy to the middle and working classes. This budget will be a ratification of Trump’s oligarchical agenda, his authoritarian fantasies, his ongoing sabotage of this great country. Can they get 60 votes for that? Can they get even a majority of Republicans, including those facing competitive elections next year, to vote for that? For with their slender majorities they can only lose 2 votes in the House and 3 in the Senate in a simple majority vote. Will Rand Paul vote for the tariffs and the ICE expansion? Will MTG vote for the gutting of our health system? Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski now vote things they have voted against in previous votes? Thom Tillis? What about the vulnerable House incumbents. Are they going to vote for the tariffs and higher inflation? The gutting of health care? Exploding deficits? Will the Freedom Caucus go along with major concessions to either the vulnerable Rs or Democrats if the filibuster remains in place?
I don’t think any of this is a given. Trump and his agenda are wildly unpopular. His first nine months have been a like a wrecking ball on the country, and the clear, material harm he is doing to all of us cannot be wished away. They are losing all the big arguments about the current, ridiculous shutdown. He is old and in ill-health, and his public performances have become far more unhinged and untethered, even for him. Basically, Trump is a huge fuck up, his agenda is toxic, his powers are ebbing, and voting for all this will make it more likely that vulnerable Republicans will lose their elections next year, and that country itself will be harmed.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/will-republicans-ever-pass-a-budge
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