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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"My job literally requires me to monitor the government funding process..."
Posted by a friend on FB~
Jake Stewart
17 January at 17:20
There are 12 spending bills that make up federal government funding. Five of the 12 were passed by the House and Senate last fall, but seven of the 12 were still pending (hence a partial shutdown).
Between October and December, key House and Senate offices met and negotiated details of the remaining 7 spending bills. When those details were worked out, they were ready to go. A two-week extension was agreed to (by both chambers) in early December to work out the final details.
In mid-December, the Senate took the first step and passed all 7 spending bills in a UNANIMOUS decision. That's right, unanimous. 100 - 0. All Republicans and Democrats voted in favor. The package gets sent to the House.
The government could have been funded here, at this very moment, had the House just passed the Senate's unanimously agreed-upon spending package. Shutdown completely avoided. But House Republicans chose not to do that.
Instead, right before the holiday break, the House decided to change the agreement (and add funding for the wall). They passed an alternative spending package in a highly partisan vote, one that contained funding for the border wall.
So now the Senate and House have two different spending bills (that's not allowed, obviously). Government shuts down. The holiday break happens. January 3rd comes. And then we have a new session. Legislation resets.
Now read carefully because this point is very, very crucial.
Speaker Pelosi could have promoted a "liberal agenda" and advocated for a new spending package that completely gave Democrats everything they wanted. However, she chose to respect the Republican-led Senate's spending package from December. So she left 6 of the 7 spending bills the exact same, word-for-word, as they were in the Senate. Again, the Senate had unanimously voted in favor of these bills just a few weeks prior.
The sole remaining spending bill was the one with the border wall funding. Speaker Pelosi simply issued a temporary extension on this bill so that the border wall funding could be debated without the government shutting down. Again, she didn't pass a spending bill that said "no funding for the wall". It was a temporary extension to work out the details and ensure negotiations didn't harm workers.
This solution would have, at the very least, kept most of the federal departments unrelated to the border wall open. It would also have kept DHS, TSA, etc., open throughout negotiations, at least until the extension deadline approached.
But Trump and Mitch McConnell are not letting this happen. They are advocating for all of these departments to remain shutdown (even departments that have NOTHING to do with the border).
Since then, Democrats in the House keep passing bill after bill to reopen the government, pay workers while the government is closed, etc. Mitch McConnell is not allowing any of these bills to come to the Senate. All because Trump told him to do that.
These men are monsters. And, by extension, if you support this, you are a monster. These families have become Trump's pawns. And they are suffering because of it.
Girard442
(6,058 posts)In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or another motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The MacGuffin's importance to the plot is not the object itself, but rather its effect on the characters and their motivations.
The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually, the MacGuffin is revealed in the first act, and thereafter declines in importance. It can reappear at the climax of the story but may actually be forgotten by the end of the story. Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin
TL;DR -- It's bullshit.
2naSalit
(86,031 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,021 posts)I don't know if cable news programs have explained it yet, but, so far as I've seen, NONE of the broadcast networks have given anything near this level of reporting to their viewers. Broadcast tv 'news' is replete with 'both sides', every day.
Every broadcast talks about "no compromise" in sight. None give any background, context, history.
we can do it
(12,116 posts)Cant trust FB.
CharleyDog
(755 posts)shutdown (Friday) for lack of funds. The FBI also harmed. These are rewards to *president* Jumbo.
calimary
(80,693 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)Pelosi explained it various times.
BumRushDaShow
(127,260 posts)and continues to happen and several of us have been attempting to explain it as concisely as the OP post.
Bravo!
The Senate MUST be allowed to vote on all of these bills to -
1.) Fund until the end of the FY (September 30, 2019) and reopen ALL of the Departments and agencies that have no jurisdiction over "immigration" or "border security"
2.) Fund DHS as a Continuing Resolution (CR) with some set date to allow for negotiations on "border security" and other topics such as "immigration", DACA, etc.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)malaise
(267,784 posts)President Obama with the Merrick Garland nomination.
They believe in one-party rule.
It is time to deal with the turtle.