Congress is scrambling to avoid a shutdown
The ‘Uniparty’ of Trump and the Future of the Senate: Moments of Upheaval and Intraparty Drama after the Meltdown
President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t been sworn in yet but he’s already running Washington again in his familiar style of upheaval and intraparty drama, starting with the decision to kill a bipartisan spending bill without a strategy to avoid a government shutdown.
Musk’s posts provoked a number of rank-and-file Republicans to announce their opposition to the deal even before Trump made it clear he also opposed it–a maneuver that spoke to how much power Musk — the richest man in the world — now yields in the GOP broadly and with Trump specifically. Musk’s X bio now reads: “The people voted for major government reform.”
It evoked a lot of the same memories as Trump’s first term, when the president would frequently change policy on legislation in real time and often by surprise announcement on social media. Republicans are frantically trying to figure out what Trump wants the party to do and whether or not it can be done.
The meltdown also exposed how politically vulnerable Speaker Mike Johnson remains as he approaches a consequential Jan. 3 House floor vote to become the chamber’s leader again. If the GOP doesn’t succeed in getting a speaker, it will be thrown into chaos again because the chamber cannot function without first.
The senator suggested that if the Constitution allows for a speaker to not be a member of Congress, the Republicans should choose Musk as speaker. Paul said it would be great to see the establishment that is called “Uniparty” lose their minds.
The legislative collapse knocked the Democrats off their feet, but they did not want to help Johnson get out of it. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Wednesday that House Republicans would be held responsible for harm to Americans if there was a government shutdown. Part of what doomed the deal was the inclusion of unrelated measures like a pay raise for members of Congress, who have not seen a pay increase since the 2008 financial crisis.
The Senate doesn’t have to approve a deal to keep the government open, as Democrats still control the chamber. It also shows the budget conflicts in the next congress, where Republicans take control but still need Democratic support to pass the 12 yearly appropriations bills, as part of their mandate under Trump.
Trump told NBC he supports scrapping the debt ceiling completely, a proposal which budget experts have supported and which caused the nation to dangerously close to default on several occasions in the past decade.
Adding to the dramatic twists as a shutdown approaches: liberal Democrats signaled their support for it. Elizabeth Warren said that she agreed with President-elect Trump’s proposal to end the debt limit and not govern again by hostage taking.
It would take weeks for the full effect of a government shut down to be felt by Americans. One thing is certain: shutdowns are a bad deal for taxpayers. They don’t save any money and the shutdowns of recent years have cost billions in lost productivity.
The Taxpayer’s Ticket: Musk and the Trump-Vance White House Attack on the X-Ray Cut-and-Save Deal
The Speaker of the House Mike Johnson spent months negotiating with Republicans and Democrats before Musk killed the bipartisan government funding deal. Musk began a campaign on X on Wednesday to blow the deal up despite Trump and his team not objecting, posting about it more than 100 times.
Ultimately, Trump and vice president–elect JD Vance issued a lengthy statement on X calling the deal a “betrayal of our country” and urging Republican lawmakers to reject the deal—which they did.