Yesterday, the Washington Post wrote perhaps the most politically significant story in the modern era, headlined “
Republicans scrap spending bill, under pressure from Trump and Musk.” The Bureaucratic Blob did everything it could to stop exactly what happened, but it happened anyway. In other words, they can’t stop it anymore. Let me explain.
CLIP: Fox News reports that Elon Musk shut down Franken-Resolution (2:26).
“Democrats,” the Post began, “were outraged at the collapse of
their deal.” (Well. Outrage
is their defining characteristic, besides arrogance.) Outraged House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) darkly warned, “an agreement is an agreement.” He vowed that “House Republicans will now own any harm that is visited upon the American people.”
Their deal? You can probably already sense, if Democrats are this flummoxed, the outcome was something really good, and it was.
I wasn’t exaggerating when I described yesterday’s climactic battle as perhaps the most politically significant story in modern history. The timeline fits into a single workday. Wednesday began with an early-morning release of a 1,600-page proposed budget that had been kept secret until yesterday—the day of the vote. Except for party leaders and backroom participants, most lawmakers only saw it for the first time around 7am, with a vote scheduled for later that afternoon.
Initial reactions from Congress were furious. Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) took a quick look and tweeted that there were nine (9) pages of continuing resolution —the part needed to keep the federal government running at current funding levels— followed by more than 1,550 pages of
new spending
over prior levels. Other lawmakers wondered how they were supposed to read and vote on a 1,600-page bill in less than one day without even advance notice.
For comparison, the previous continuing resolution passed by Congress only
ran to 21 pages. Here’s Rep. Mace comparing the two bills:
Despite having frittered away months to get it done, Speaker Johnson scheduled the critical vote toward the end of the final week right before Christmas break and two days before federal government funding runs out on Friday afternoon. No pressure.
You might ask how in the name of Benjamin Franklin are hundreds of Representatives supposed to read 1,600 pages of dense statutory text in a few hours and then vote
intelligently? What about
informed consent? Why not give them at least a week?
Everyone knows: these mega-pork bills are deliberately released late, under pressure, with no time for reading, so that nobody
can read it and tell the public what’s in it before it is too late.
In the clip linked above, yesterday morning, well before the bill died on the operating table, terrific Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna complained about being forced to vote on a bill without understanding it: “I don’t know how else to say it. This is a sh— sandwich. We’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.”
Or as bionic-hipped Nancy Pelosi once quipped through slipping dentures, “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”
The bill itself was
terrible. It was a dreamlike Festivus grab-bag stuffed with Democrats’
worst progessive ideas. You’ve probably seen the lists. Had it passed, hundreds of progressive fantasies would have been fulfilled, everything from replacing the word “criminal” in the Federal code with “justice-involved individual,” to funding “at least twelve” new secret biolabs for “pandemic prevention.” Uh huh. It had $70 billion more for Ukraine, funding for government censorship, and would have expanded government pandemic powers.
This Franken-pork bill offered everyone something to hate. Personally, I was outraged that the bill would have —at this late date—
finally cut off many vaccine-related powers given to the HHS Secretary — right before Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s arrival. I’ve been reassuring you that Kennedy can fix the latest crazy covid declarations from HHS. But this bill would have “fixed” Kennedy, leaving the incoming HHS Secretary newly powerless to stop the covid state of emergency till after Trump’s term.
No. Thank. You.
In return for this progressive nuclear disaster, Republicans “negotiated”
two priorities for conservatives. The bill included funding for disaster victims —who should have
already been funded, by FEMA— and funding for farmers, who are amidst the latest farming emergency of some kind, which always seems to pop out of its disaster box every budget cycle and which helps many distressed Hollywood celebrities and progressive politicians smart enough to buy small farms to get in on the game.
It remains unclear why Republicans gave Democrats so much pork to get
two items in return, since Republicans are in the majority and can pass a budget without Democrats.
By mid-morning, a war of words had exploded on X. It was the war the Frankenfunders hoped to avoid. Users started posting excerpts and summaries from the bill. Elon began reposting critical comments.
Trump, who’d kept silent till then, posted three unusually well-drafted comments on his Truth Social platform. The President-Elect wanted the House to
do its job, and pass a continuing resolution without all the Festivus presents for Democrats. Most importantly, he wants Republicans to
raise the debt ceiling so he won’t have to do it as soon as he gets into office.
They literally have more Republicans in the House
now than they will have in 2025. Why
not now?
By mid-afternoon, the continuing resolution was taking on water, but it was still afloat and remained viable for a vote. At 1:17pm, just hours after the 1,600-page monster first became available to read, Government Efficiency Czar Elon Musk tweeted a threat to GOP lawmakers: if they vote for the bill, he hinted there would be primary challenges against them in their next election cycle. That threat seems to have been what did it. As the WaPo reported, the bill, already on life support, coded and joined the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Headline from the Hill:
Elon didn’t
say he would fund primary efforts against porky Republicans. But he
did, after all, just shepherd the most successful political turnaround in history. So.
The Bureaucracy died a little yesterday, which outraged Democrats, of course. That and lots more in today's roundup.
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