Senate Democrats rejected for the 10th time Thursday a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits.
The vote failed Thursday morning on a 51-45 vote, well short of the 60 needed to advance with the Senate’s filibuster rules.
The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become. It has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor, while House Republicans have left Washington altogether. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed.
If Congress does not agree with how the executive spends money, then it is their responsibility as Congress to refuse to allow it to spend money. It’s their job to control the purse, explicitly designed that way, to do exactly this. It isn’t a broken system that government is shut down, it’s the intended result when Congress and the Executive can’t agree on how to govern the nation. If there is no agreement, there is no governance. It’s working as intended.
Defund the fascists who intent to destroy American democracy, the Republic, the rule for law and the division of powers. Disempower them by denying them the purse. I don’t know if democrats even grasp how important it is that they hold this line. It is the last line protecting the division of powers and is so much more important than health care.
Totally agree. Folks talking about health care is understandable to explain to the public, but the executive is just spending and “impounding” money any fucking way Trump wants right now and that runs counter to the constitutional order.
It may be an unpopular position if Repubs eventually cave on health care (at least on paper) but I think the Democrats should hold out for some type of actionable promise from the executive to return to the constitutional order, or force Repubs to nuke the filibuster and completely own this pile of shit.
What good is a budget if the executive can use it as toilet paper?
What good is the constitution if the executive can use it as toilet paper?