Hey Congress, We’re Sick of Your Federal Shutdown b.s.! – The American Spectator

This morning (Sunday Oct 1, 2023), the Wall Street Journal tells us (surely, this must be tongue in cheek!):

“A bipartisan measure was passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Biden. The legislation includes $16 billion in disaster relief but omits aid for Ukraine and excludes border-security measures sought by Republicans.”

The only “Surprise Breakthrough” in this headlined “news” is that the newspaper didn’t include “narrowly” before “averted,” in this stretch of its journalistic imagination. We’re quite used to “‘narrowly averted.” (READ MORE: After the US Credit Downgrade, Let’s Talk About a Radical Budget Change)

The Wall Street Journal should up its game — we have long known these familiar threats and bogus, instant resolutions from The Swamp to be pure fiction. Biden had his wobbly pen ready and “signed off” on this happy failure to change direction to the good, so we can all draw — again — a saving breath, because the feds have their dough — again, or the promise of it? We won’t thank the heavens for this one.

When I was a child growing up near the inner D.C. neighborhood of Friendship Heights, age about 10, the internal, pictorial understanding which came to me of Washington, D.C. proper was of the city trapped within a balloon, attached only by a string to the real earth. This child’s intuition remains: the U.S. Congress is up in the sky — or Down in the Swamp, a current variant — afloat in empty space, in hot air.

With all this tiresome posturing, is it any wonder that the politicians worry if America doesn’t know they’re there at work in D.C. at all? Are the pols sending out a flare? Do we care?

Why does the U.S. Congress humiliate itself to rehash its spending charade? Wasn’t the last almost-shut-down about 10 months ago? Yes, it was. My porch-sitting friend, Abe, has these thoughts on “why”:

1. Abe thinks the Congress needs us to not forget it’s there. So, “they” scare us a little — or try to. But “shutdown” is a “threat” to them, not us. But Abe doesn’t really care — it’s all too obvious to bother with.

2. But Abe humors me and further speculates (we’re still in our rockers, jawing): “they” are worried about not really having “a ground game”; to Abe, “a household budget.” That’s when you get with the wife, or the husband, or “mebbe” the whole family, and decide on what you need and what you can do without. But Abe insists; “Thing is, the family’s all gotta stick with it — after we talk. We’ve promised, you know —  before we spend the money, not after.” (READ MORE: Speaker McCarthy, Balance the Budget to Save America)

3. With Congress, Abe clarifies, there’s almost never an approved annual budget ready “from those so-called Presidents” (now Abe’s sneering) — you need a budget to start out with, and then “those jokers” call the rest appropriations: “What-all are they appropriating from, anyhow?” Abe points out that the process has recently changed: “Now, they can get to do it all in one big, humongous lump; all in one! They like to do that around midnite.”

4. To Abe, the “humongous lump” accounts for our taxes always getting worse, and for prices always going up. Abe expands on this theme: “Get it? They have plenty of time to get all that figuring done bit by bit, so we’re clued in beforehand “bout what they’re getting up to. But they always wait until the last second, sittin’ on their hands. At the end, they start just throwing up their hands, whining. That’s when we’re supposed to worry about them. Like when my kids — used to —  hit me up for ready pocket cash, real quick, then bang they’re out the door with it — taking me by surprise, like.”

5. Abe says he saw something on CNN (he rolls his eyes) just back in December. He snorts: “Well, they got their $1.7 trillion to spend then, and it’s 4,000 pages long — who reads that? That’s coming out of our backsides. This’ll be more of the same. The hell with ‘em.” Just so, Abe.