Breakdowns and Shutdowns

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson faced his first test, and he apparently failed.

He wanted a vote on a continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown and keep government spending at current levels for the time being, with no additional aid to Israel and Ukraine, to allow Congress to negotiate a more permanent budget deal.  But members of his own fellow Republicans - mostly from the MAGA wing - voted against it, as they want to see immediate and drastic cuts in domestic spending.  Johnson needed help from the Democrats to pass such a resolution, and Democrats, recognizing the need for a continuing resolution, helped it pass.

Johnson tried a typical Republican party trick of offering a proposal he figured the Democrats wouldn't support, thus allowing the government to shut down, but with several Republicans in the House already opposed to this strategy, he allowed the resolution to pass.  The Senate has indicated that it will pass it as well.

Government shutdowns have been part and parcel of politics in Washington since 1981, when President Reagan vetoed a continuing resolution to keep the government open while both houses of Congress were negotiating in good faith to come up wit ha budget.  That had been standard procedure before the 1980s, but Reagan wanted to use the threat of the government running out of money to force cuts he felt were necessary.  The ploy only caused chaos, and chaos eventually became a Republican tool.  For the most part, though, Republicans rarely pay a political price for causing government shutdowns.  Although the public largely blamed Republicans for the 2013 government shutdown, the party was rewarded with control of the Senate and an expanded majority in the House the following year. 

So if you think Democrats should have let the GOP allow the government to shut down so that the Democrats would have a political issue to run on in 2024, think again.  A shutdown is the last thing Democrats or the country needs right now.