Posted on Dec 14, 2015
Every December, ever wonder, "Why all the government shutdown drama?", and if you are one of the affected, where will you be?
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On Dec 11th, a 5 day continuing resolution was passed to keep federal operations afloat which keeps me working until 16 Dec 2015 (2 days from this post) as I am not an "excepted" employee. If a resolution is not reached and approved by then, I will be one of many who will be sitting at home until the resolution is approved and passed. Of course, after passing the short-term continuing resolution on Dec 11th, law makers headed home for the weekend, leaving senior negotiators and their staff to finish the year-end appropriations talks. So... What do you guys think... Will I be working past the 16th, or will I be sitting at home wondering, "Why all this drama every year?" Or is it really about House "perceptions"? Bets are now open!!!
WASHINGTON — Every December brings anxieties about Congress finishing its work in time to avert a government shutdown. Christmas cheer is overshadowed by partisan finger pointing; lawmakers have months to come to an agreement on spending priorities and policy riders, but don’t.
Before they headed home this past weekend, many rank-and-file lawmakers paused to consider why they find themselves in a deadline rush every December and whether it will ever be different.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan caught people by surprise when he said the day before the government’s funding expired that Dec. 11 was an “arbitrary” goalpost.
“Look,” the Wisconsin Republican said at his weekly news conference. “Deadlines come and deadlines go. We want to make sure that we get it right.”
Congress bought some time on Dec. 11 when it passed a five-day continuing resolution to keep federal operations afloat. However, Ryan’s comments marked the first time in recent memory a top House Republican publicly shrugged at the reality that negotiations had gone that far down to the wire.
One reporter questioned whether Ryan’s attitude was one of “nonchalance.” But the new speaker wasn’t saying anything most people in the Capitol didn’t already know.
In the House, rank-and-file lawmakers passed the short-term CR by voice vote on Dec. 11 and shortly thereafter headed home for the weekend, leaving senior negotiators and their staff to finish the year-end omnibus appropriations talks.
Rolling spending measures into one massive package, or “omnibus,” has likely exacerbated the end-of-the-year crunch. “Since 2001, only about a quarter of those appropriations bills have been handled as stand-alone measures,” explained Molly Reynolds, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
The 12th month of every year is a time for heartburn, headaches and hand wringing — and then everything works out, or at least enough so that members can go home before Christmas.
“There’s a lot at stake,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., the chairman of the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee. “We’re moving forward and then (Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi stopped it, stop talking. Because she wants more leverage. And her leverage is time, to force it so that there’s no time and you’re on the verge of a shutdown and everything else and she thinks she has more leverage.
“Do I blame her? No,” he continued. “Do I like it? Absolutely not. I wish she would just roll over, just like she wishes we would roll over.”
Zero-sum games are just as much a part of spending spill negotiations as they are a part of talks between athletes and sports teams or between striking laborers and management, said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a longtime observer of Congress.
“It’s not just procrastination,” he said. “Everybody believes that in the end, you’ve got more leverage. And of course, it’s not necessarily the case that both sides have more leverage … it’s the perception.”
What makes it worse in Congress, he added, is partisan dysfunction.
But former state legislators laughed off the idea that stalling is a condition unique to Congress.
“When I was in the legislature, I used to say about the budget: ‘Think of it as childbirth,’” said House Military Construction-Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Charlie Dent, R-Pa. “‘It’s painful. Sometimes you’re a little early, sometimes you’re a little late, sometimes you’re on time. Sometimes there’s a breach.’”
Democrats, too, feel that running out the clock has been a consistent part of legislating.
“Oh, I mean, I was in the state legislature 30 years ago, and we operated like that,” 13-term Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., said.
Some Republicans, though, think the process is going to change with new leadership.
“I think this is going to be the last year for a while that this is going to happen,” said Wyoming Republican Cynthia M. Lummis, the sole female member of the House Freedom Caucus, who’s retiring at the end of this Congress.
The end-of-year drama has been a constant feature of Lummis’ time in Congress, she said, “up until the day Paul Ryan raised his hand and was sworn in.”
“And now,” she added, “all bets are off on the old culture; the new culture is coming. But it doesn’t happen on a dime, and so we’re in the remnants of the last draws of breath of this aberration of a process.”
One reason to be hopeful things actually will change, Reynolds said, is that the budget deal passed at the end of October outlined next year’s top-line spending levels, which should speed up next year’s negotiations.
“At the same time,” she cautioned, “next year is an election year, and obviously their attention will be directed elsewhere.”
In the meantime, Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., is capitalizing on the year-end scramble in the partisan messaging wars, recently tweeting a riff on Adele’s new hit single.
He wrote: “Hello from the other side/we postponed this 1000 times/I’m sorry/we don’t know how to legislate/Republicans made us wait til the last date.”
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/every-december-why-all-the-government-shutdown-drama-1.384028
WASHINGTON — Every December brings anxieties about Congress finishing its work in time to avert a government shutdown. Christmas cheer is overshadowed by partisan finger pointing; lawmakers have months to come to an agreement on spending priorities and policy riders, but don’t.
Before they headed home this past weekend, many rank-and-file lawmakers paused to consider why they find themselves in a deadline rush every December and whether it will ever be different.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan caught people by surprise when he said the day before the government’s funding expired that Dec. 11 was an “arbitrary” goalpost.
“Look,” the Wisconsin Republican said at his weekly news conference. “Deadlines come and deadlines go. We want to make sure that we get it right.”
Congress bought some time on Dec. 11 when it passed a five-day continuing resolution to keep federal operations afloat. However, Ryan’s comments marked the first time in recent memory a top House Republican publicly shrugged at the reality that negotiations had gone that far down to the wire.
One reporter questioned whether Ryan’s attitude was one of “nonchalance.” But the new speaker wasn’t saying anything most people in the Capitol didn’t already know.
In the House, rank-and-file lawmakers passed the short-term CR by voice vote on Dec. 11 and shortly thereafter headed home for the weekend, leaving senior negotiators and their staff to finish the year-end omnibus appropriations talks.
Rolling spending measures into one massive package, or “omnibus,” has likely exacerbated the end-of-the-year crunch. “Since 2001, only about a quarter of those appropriations bills have been handled as stand-alone measures,” explained Molly Reynolds, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
The 12th month of every year is a time for heartburn, headaches and hand wringing — and then everything works out, or at least enough so that members can go home before Christmas.
“There’s a lot at stake,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., the chairman of the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee. “We’re moving forward and then (Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi stopped it, stop talking. Because she wants more leverage. And her leverage is time, to force it so that there’s no time and you’re on the verge of a shutdown and everything else and she thinks she has more leverage.
“Do I blame her? No,” he continued. “Do I like it? Absolutely not. I wish she would just roll over, just like she wishes we would roll over.”
Zero-sum games are just as much a part of spending spill negotiations as they are a part of talks between athletes and sports teams or between striking laborers and management, said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a longtime observer of Congress.
“It’s not just procrastination,” he said. “Everybody believes that in the end, you’ve got more leverage. And of course, it’s not necessarily the case that both sides have more leverage … it’s the perception.”
What makes it worse in Congress, he added, is partisan dysfunction.
But former state legislators laughed off the idea that stalling is a condition unique to Congress.
“When I was in the legislature, I used to say about the budget: ‘Think of it as childbirth,’” said House Military Construction-Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Charlie Dent, R-Pa. “‘It’s painful. Sometimes you’re a little early, sometimes you’re a little late, sometimes you’re on time. Sometimes there’s a breach.’”
Democrats, too, feel that running out the clock has been a consistent part of legislating.
“Oh, I mean, I was in the state legislature 30 years ago, and we operated like that,” 13-term Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., said.
Some Republicans, though, think the process is going to change with new leadership.
“I think this is going to be the last year for a while that this is going to happen,” said Wyoming Republican Cynthia M. Lummis, the sole female member of the House Freedom Caucus, who’s retiring at the end of this Congress.
The end-of-year drama has been a constant feature of Lummis’ time in Congress, she said, “up until the day Paul Ryan raised his hand and was sworn in.”
“And now,” she added, “all bets are off on the old culture; the new culture is coming. But it doesn’t happen on a dime, and so we’re in the remnants of the last draws of breath of this aberration of a process.”
One reason to be hopeful things actually will change, Reynolds said, is that the budget deal passed at the end of October outlined next year’s top-line spending levels, which should speed up next year’s negotiations.
“At the same time,” she cautioned, “next year is an election year, and obviously their attention will be directed elsewhere.”
In the meantime, Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., is capitalizing on the year-end scramble in the partisan messaging wars, recently tweeting a riff on Adele’s new hit single.
He wrote: “Hello from the other side/we postponed this 1000 times/I’m sorry/we don’t know how to legislate/Republicans made us wait til the last date.”
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/every-december-why-all-the-government-shutdown-drama-1.384028
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Edited 9 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 3
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Don't those temporarily laid off get back pay when they come back? Sounds to me like a free vacation.
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MSgt Curtis Ellis
Capt Seid Waddell Not all of them, and yes, a good "vacation" for those who get back pay... not so much for those who don't have the funds to cover a month or more during the holidays... I guess it depends on how you see it.
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MCPO Roger Collins
Normally when this happens a bill is passed exempting military. Is there anyone on RP that has lost a dime with these phony shutdowns?
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Government shutdown will be worsen and worsen, until one side give in. As of right now, one side think that government shutdown will ensure their political victory in the coming election, the other believe that only through government shutdown they maybe able to get their way. Either way ... the mass general population will not feel the effect immediately, or so some claim it will not really effect anyone of those general population.
Most of the people in the general population don't know how much of their lives had government in them already. I think of myself as a very self-reliance person, and family. We have enough backup option that many will call my family prepper, but in fact we barely can last through a serious disaster. As a community ... we are not as self-reliance as our founder... people will freak out when a serious government shutdown started to take hold for a long time.
Most of the people in the general population don't know how much of their lives had government in them already. I think of myself as a very self-reliance person, and family. We have enough backup option that many will call my family prepper, but in fact we barely can last through a serious disaster. As a community ... we are not as self-reliance as our founder... people will freak out when a serious government shutdown started to take hold for a long time.
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Yo won't be alone MSgt Curtis Ellis. As a disabled Vet, I won't be paid either if the government decides to wait till after THEIR paid break. It's going to complicate things come the first of January if I don't get paid !! I hope that the government can get it together before then, and you can get back to work. :-)
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