Well they started it, so what did they think would happen? How about this:
White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought on Friday announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is halting $11 billion in federal funding for projects in four states amid the government shutdown.
And the four states thus targeted?
New York will face the biggest bulk of funding cuts with its projects in New York City, but cities in California, Massachusetts and Maryland will also see reductions because of the shutdown.
My reaction:
Of course, they’re upset about this:
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Soc- NY OH) warned the pause will devastate American families.
“Cutting $11 Billion in Corps projects will devastate communities across America & drive up costs for working families. Infrastructure investment keeps ports competitive, protects homes from flooding, & supports good-paying jobs. Infrastructure investment keeps ports competitive, protects homes from flooding, and supports good-paying jobs.”
Hey Marcy, your constituents and those from the other four Left-wing states voted you and your little socialist buddies into office, and now they get to face the consequences of your actions. Suck on it, Lefties.
As for the rest of us:
Correction: Alert Reader Jon M. informs me that said Kaptur reptile is in fact from Ohio — in the ninth district, a little bluebottle in the tomato soup that includes the garden spot of Toledo. My apologies both to her and to the state of New York.
This whole thing is performative nonsense; both Rs and Ds want the shutdown because the American people are incredibly ignorant of the mechanism of the filibuster. Ds want it to protect the ACA and blame the Rs for trying to cut it. Rs also want to protect the ACA, but they want the optics of blaming a shutdown on the Ds.
They’re both full of shit, because the filibuster is meaningless. And it’s a con they have played on since 1806. It is a voluntary procedural rule requiring a vote of 60 to overcome on any given bill. But to eliminate the filibuster as a concept takes only 50 votes. The Rs have the 50 votes to do this but they do not, for the simple reason that it lets them play to the ignorance of the American voters who like to blame the other side. The senate has gotten rid of the filibuster selectively by just such a means: in 2013 the Ds did it for presidential appointments and in 2017 the Rs did it for Supreme Court nominees.
If Rs wanted to eliminate ACA supplements, it would take all of 5 minutes to eliminate the filibuster as to continuing resolutions on budgets.
But the Rs do not.
And the Ds know how meaningless the filibuster is, yet they continue to do so.
Ask yourself why. It’s not to “do” anything other than play the game of hoping the harm to the american people makes them blame the other side more.
I hope this is a great opportunity for the Republicans to codify into law all the DOGE cuts and more. Every week the GOP in the House should be putting forth simple, short bills of less than 50 pages to eliminate spending on the crackpot programs in USAID and other departments. Release the bill on a Monday and vote by Friday. Publicize the cuts and why they should be cut. That will garner a lot of support from the American public.