Welcome Instapundit readers (and everyone else, of course). I have a very depressing update to this post, which you can read here.
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According to news reports, Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to reach any sort of budget agreement before April 8, when a short-term spending bill for the current fiscal year expires.
Barring some new development, this could mean a shutdown of the non-essential parts of the government.
This makes both sides very nervous. Democrats don’t want the spending spigot turned off and are worried that voters might conclude that there’s no reason to ever re-open departments such as Housing and Urban Development. Republicans, meanwhile, mostly worry that they might look unreasonable and get blamed if certain parts of the government are mothballed and voters can’t get passports or visit national parks.
Given this state of play, what’s the best strategy for fiscal conservatives, libertarians, and other advocates of smaller government?
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard thinks Republicans should continue with short-term spending bills.
…the incremental strategy is working. Republicans have passed two short-term measures to keep the government in operation since early March while slashing $10 billion in spending. At this rate, they would achieve the target of GOP congressional leaders of lopping off $61 billion from President Obama’s proposed budget in the final seven months of the 2011 fiscal year. There’s every reason to believe the incremental strategy would continue to succeed.
He’s worried that a more confrontational approach, where the GOP passes a take-it-or-leave-it spending bill, might backfire – even though any shutdown would exist solely because Senator Reid and/or President Obama refused to act.
Would a shutdown give Republicans more muscle in negotiating for cuts? …Maybe it would. But it might not. …So long as they control the Senate and White House, Democrats will reject massive cuts. Republicans also want to bar spending for Planned Parenthood, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Mr. Obama’s health-care program. Attach any of these prohibitions to a spending measure and Democratic opposition is certain. Should Republicans insist, we’ll get a government shutdown. This is a big gamble. …Indeed it might discredit Republicans and boost Mr. Obama in the same way the shutdown in 1995 hurt Republicans and lifted President Bill Clinton out of the doldrums. It could alienate independent voters so critical to the Republican triumph in 2010. True enough, the political atmosphere is more favorable to serious spending reductions than it was 16 years ago. …But why take a chance?
I think Barnes is a bit off in his portrayal of what happened in 1995, as I’ve previously explained, but these are all fair points. A “shutdown” fight could be considered uncharted territory.
Keith Hennessey, a former Hill staffer and Bush Administration official, also is skeptical of a confrontational approach. Instead, he suggests that the GOP increase the pressure on Democrats by slowly increasing the amount of weekly spending cuts.
While negotiating with the President’s team and Senate Democrats, in this variant House Republicans continue to pass short-term Continuing Resolutions as long as there is not an acceptable full-year deal. In these repeated future CRs, they ratchet up the spending cuts by the paltry figure of only $100 million each week. …Under this new variant, as April 8th approaches House Republicans would pass another three week CR, one which cuts $2.1 B in its first week, $2.2 B in its second week, and $2.3 B in its third week. …Such a tiny weekly increment would be nearly impossible for Democrats to reject. And yet if continued through the end of this fiscal year, $4.5 B of discretionary spending would be cut in the final week, that of September 23rd. This strategy…poses zero additional risk for Congressional Republicans. They would maintain the high ground on spending cuts and remain on the offensive for the next six months.
There’s a lot to like about Keith’s approach. If successful, he explains, GOPers could wind up with $82 billion of cuts rather than just $61 billion.
But here’s my concern about an incremental strategy. What makes anyone think that the left will go along with short-term spending bills, regardless of whether they cut $2 billion per week, or even more?
Democrats already have agreed to $10 billion of cuts, and even though that’s very trivial when compared to total spending (akin to a couple of french fries out of a Big Mac meal), the pro-spending lobbies and their allies on Capitol Hill are balking at the thought of additional cuts. So while it might be possible to push through a couple of additional short-term spending bills, there will come a point when Democrats refuse to play ball. And when that happens, we’re back to a partial shutdown.
Here’s how constitutional lawyer James Bopp, Jr., explained the issue in a piece for the Washington Times.
A government shutdown is inevitable because President Obama will insist on it. Nothing the Republicans do, short of total capitulation, will prevent this from happening. …With a three-week extension of government funding (which included $6 billion in cuts) expiring April 8, now is the time to escalate one’s bid. Demand $12 billion in cuts the next time. And when the shutdown occurs because of an Obama veto or a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate, the House should keep passing bills to reopen the government, coupling it with more spending cuts. …There is a fundamental contradiction in the Democrats’ shutting down the government. The Democrats are the party of government. It is like a bank robber, caught in the act, who threatens to pull the trigger on himself if arrested; what would the cop say but, “Go ahead”? The government shutdown threat defeats the Democrats own objective and is thus ultimately self-defeating, while the Republicans protect the bank depositors – the taxpayers – from the bank robber.
I think this is largely correct, particularly in that there almost certainly will be a shutdown fight. The only question is when it will happen. And if a shutdown battle is inevitable, advocates of smaller government should decide whether it’s better to have that fight sooner rather than later.
My instinct is that it would be better to fight now. GOP resolve presumably will decrease over time, particularly since the “easy” spending cuts get used up first. Moreover, it is quite likely that a strategy of short-term spending bills will complicate GOP efforts to get budget process reform in a couple of months in exchange for an increase in the debt limit.
Democrats surely don’t want the GOP to have another opportunity to restrain the size of government, so they would insist on an increase in the federal government’s borrowing authority as the price for approving whatever short-term spending bill is being considered around that time. Republicans presumably will balk at that demand. But that brings us back, once again, to a shutdown fight. Only this time, it will be complicated by demagogic assertions of a default.
So long as the final result is a smaller burden of government, there is no right or wrong answer about the process. It’s simply a question of which approach is more likely to achieve the desired outcome. I think fighting now is better than fighting later, but if the GOP chooses a strategy of short-term spending bills, I hope I’m wrong.
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[…] The first fight occurred early in the year and revolved around spending levels for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year. I explained in February of that year how advocates of smaller government could prevail in a government shutdown fight, especially since the “essential” parts of the government wouldn’t be affected. […]
[…] The first fight occurred early in the year and revolved around spending levels for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year. I explained in February of that year how advocates of smaller government could prevail in a government shutdown fight, especially since the “essential” parts of the government wouldn’t be affected. […]
The debate was lost from the beginning. The Republicans asked for a pitiful amount of cuts, $60 billion. So that meant that no matter what happened, we’d be arguing over peanuts.
The shutdown is irrelevant. No matter what happens, we are not going to see any meaningful cuts.
The approach of continuing to pass short term bills with small cuts, that will add up to 60b for the year, has one good point. If the dems refuse to pass it, it is much easier to blame them for the shutdown, since it is pretty hard for the dems to argue for shutting down the gov because they cant a paltry few million in cuts. The whole reason the dems seem so eager for a shutdown is they think the repubs will be blamed for it, but if it looks like they will be blamed for it, they will be much less eager to wield the shutdown threat. On the other hand, if repubs refuse to pass another short term CR, it will be easy for the dems, backed by the media, to blame repubs for the shutdown, which is exactly what the dems seem to want.
The repubs, in order to look like moderates, willing to compromise, should also constantly say how open to compromise they are on WHERE the 60b in spending cuts will be, as long as the full 60b is cut SOMEWHERE. Then, anytime a dem challenges something in the 60b of cuts, reply that they would be glad to consider a deal to recind that particular cut, as long as that dem proposes an equal cut somewhere else in the budget. This puts the dems on the spot, since it is much easier to argue against a specific cut, than it is to argue that, in our huge budget, there is no possible combination of program cuts that would allow a mere 60b, 3%, of total cuts. This will change the field of discussion and compromise to WHERE to cut, rather than WHETHER to cut, a field of argument where I suspect the TEA Party would be much more flexible. It also exposes the real dem position, that they dont actually want to cut ANYTHING.
They need to start placing parts of the government “beyond the shutdown”. Fund National Parks through 2012; take care of our soldiers in the field through 2012; ensure long-term projects with serious shut-down/restart costs continue through 2012…..
Then, when remaining nonessential spending is limited to the DoE, HHS, EPA, and other such parasites, let it happen.
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Why even bother with cuts less than 10% of the current deficit? Why have all this knockdown-dragout over such a pittance?
Is this all we can do? Trillions in debt, and we can quit spending maybe 50 billion?
Hardly even slows the rate of decline. And remember, with inflation, interest on the national debt will be rising. Japan will be selling, not buying US Bonds.
Tempest in a teapot – we are so skrued.
Just to summarize, the soundbite is:
“Why can’t we fund what we alll agree on first (to ensure essential services and things like making sure new retirees get on Social Security), and fight over what we don’t agree on later?”
Or” “We believe that the only responsible thing to do is fund what we all agree on, first, and fight over what we don’t agree on, later. Social Security payments should not be held hostage over disagreements on whether to fund classical music stations.”
The R’s can win the whole thing, but are being blocked due to framing – and some of their supporters and the Right are partially to blame, too.
Remember that while the goal is to reduce gov’t spending as much as is responsible, the messaging is about winning the independents.
Therefor, instead of trumpeting “CUTS,” talk about “funding what we all agree on, first.”
Here’s the soundbite that wins the battle: “We in the House believe we all, possibly distracted by the political nature of our jobs, have been approaching the budget in the wrong way. We’ve been focusing on what we disagree on, instead of what we all agree on. There is broad agreement between the parties on a host of functions that should be funded – we agree far more than we disagree – and we in the House believe that the smart approach to avoiding a government shut down, and responsibly funding the responsibilities which the American people have entrusted us with, is to fund what we agree on first, and only after that fight over what we disagree on.”
Next: “Based on that line of thinking, the House is passing a CR to cover ‘essential’ spending – the spending that would occur in the case of a gov’t shutdown – for the rest of the fiscal year. This way, no federal employee will be asked to work without receiving timely pay, and no essential federal functions as understood in 2010 (for 2011) will be jeapordized. HR 1A funds all ‘COOP’ contingency plans throug the rest of the year, on the basis that we beleive those plans have been set out in good faith and consistent with ‘shut-down’ instructions. In no case will such funding be greater than 75% of 2010 total appropriations. In any event, negligent or reckless disregard of the standards for spending during a shutdown are violations of the anti-deficiency act, and may be investigated and prosecuted up to 6 years after the funding in question ceases. We call on the Senate to pass this bill, and the President to sign it, to ensure that all essential functions continue and no federal worker has to come in to work without being paid at the end of the pay period.”
Final: “Now that we’ve ensured that essential functions are funded, we can turn our attention to the matters that both parties agree on. HR2 will be to fully fund the Social Security Administration at 2010 levels, so that new retirees are able to sign up and collect their checks. HR3 will be to fully fund the patent office for the remainder of the fiscal year. HR4 will be to fully fund OSHA. Etc. Etc.”
And then, you leave for the *end* the issues that you only want to partially fund, or don’t want to fund at all. You state what you are willing to fund, don’t pass what you aren’t willing to fund (NPR, Planned Parenthood, Obamacare implementation), and live with the political consequences.
Why stop with Housing and Urban Development? The Constitution specifially listed the powers of the federal government, and all other powers are reserved to “the states, and to the people.” We erred badly in ignoring the founders’ words, actions, and intent. Just stop everything that is not mentioned as being within the scope of the federal government’s authority, certainly including the Departments of Energy and Education, healthcare, and abortions. Actually, I would maintain HUD for the interim as the corrupt Democrat regimes in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit are dismantled and the perptrators are prosecuted and jailed.
The entire national debt, $14 trillion, came from three extraConstitutional, corrupt, and wasteful Democratic laws and policies: LBJ’s War on Poverty ($6 trillion), Clinton’s Dot.com Bubble that popped one year before Clinton left office and resulted in $3 trillion added to the national debt, and Carter’s and Clinton’s Housing Bubble. There were a very few compassionate Republican votes for the War on Poverty but there is absolutely no other Republican law or policy that contributed to the national debt. At $14 trillion, do you think you got your money’s worth?
Listening to them bicker in Congress, I am starting to think that the debt limit increase fight is going to be the real motivator. It might be unrealistic to demand no increase in the debt and force the budget to act accordingly, but that would certainly change the dynamic of the situation.
The Republicans need to, in one voice, keep saying “this isn’t a shut-down. It’s a stick-up.” And stay on message until they and everybody else are absolutely sick to death of hearing it.
It works for the Democrats.
Well, shut it down on 4/8 or wait until 10/01/2011. Because there is no way in hell that the Donkeys will vote for a budget before the election. They didn’t vote for one while they were in charge; most of them will see no benefit in doing so now.
One other point. Dan is absolutely correct, on one thing. The demorat calculus is they need a shutdown (of non-essential government workers) to win in 2012.
There will be a battle. Best to do it now. The GOP can keep passing and passing Bills that fund various aspects of government and the Dems will have to vote yes.
If we wait for the Ryan 2012 budget it is too late. No way the Dems approve that with out a serious surrender on these small cuts now. Frankly, $61B is political theater. The Ryan 2012 budget is war.
But again, in any case, the GOP needs some serious improvement in messaging.
So I disagree with, “So long as the final result is a smaller burden of government, there is no right or wrong answer about the process.”
Well, where to start?
First, the GOP never, ever learns anything about language. They need to never ever say shutdown without the qualifier of “non-essential” government services. They should use the term “temporary furlough” of non-essential government workers. The should never use the term $61B but always use the term as a percentage of the budget. “I cannot believe the demorats cannot even cut .00X%. If this is draconian then we are really in trouble with the budget running over by 80%. The demorats borrow 40 cents from the chinese for every dollar they spend.” Repeat, rinse, repeat.
They should have a Bill standing by that specifically funds the things the majority of people want. This should include essential services, even though they would not be stopped anyhow, and a few non-essential services like Parks. For things like education the Bill should direct the spending directly to the States, parents or school districts on a capitation basis, bypassing the DoEd bureaucracy, which would be on a long “snow day”.
The GOP should offer this bill as a substitute to the CR. The dems will scream but the GOP can counter that the dems do not want to fund education, law enforcement, parks, etc. Let them scream about NPR and Planned Parenthood and all those DC Metro commuters. They will get no sympathy in the rest of the Country outside a few urban areas.
[…] Comments « Budget Battle Update: It’s About Preparing for the Inevitable Fight, not Forcing a Shutdo… […]
It is good to read insightful thinking.
This is a reasonable analysis.This is a championship fight. You’ve got to be prepared to go into the late rounds.
[…] GUT CHECK FOR THE GOP: Dan Mitchell: Budget Battle Update: It’s About Preparing for the Inevitable Fight, not Forcing a S… […]
Strike “belive” and replace with “believe” in the above post.
Another excellent piece Dan. I belive you to be spot on.