A shutdown? Really? What we are seeing now is a lesson in how not to negotiate.
I’m sure the Democrats and Republicans can come up with all kinds of reasons for doing what they’ve just been doing.
Does it make sense to have a shutdown now? This will only create additional pain.
The problem here is the Democratic side believes—I hope—they can get out of this with some kind of positive result for the people, or at least that’s what they say.
You’re arguing with a side that is gung-ho to make more cuts. You’re arguing with a side that already announced there will be more cuts.
This shutdown now gives the current government everything they needed in order to cut the government further. I don’t know how this is a mystery.
This has nothing to do with any Project 2025 because that’s been the definitive stance of the Republican Party for decades. It’s a Heritage Foundation idea as well, and it goes with the idea of small government. That’s not new. That’s something that’s already baked into the Republican position.
The idea that you can somehow rip what the Republican Party sees as their major achievement recently—the big beautiful bill—that you can just undo that? That’s a very bold proposition.
Who will be blamed for this? Well, the blame may well be distributed, but if the Democratic Party pretends that they can play the role of the adult in the room and that they can push responsibility away from them, I’m not so sure that’s going to work.
People will not be paid, programs will not be funded, and this will lead—the longer it takes—to just more pain. You have to climb down from that tree. And you’re trying to climb down from the tree you put yourself on while you’re trying to negotiate with a position where people are getting what they wanted: smaller government.
This needs to stop. This should never have gone this far. There needs to be some way to just sign a continuing resolution and be done with this. I mean, this whole thing—government shutdowns over things that already were agreed to be paid—that’s not how you solve a policy problem. This is not how you play opposition.
Any of these debt ceiling ideas run the risk of saying we somehow need to curb spending and eliminate debt. That sounds all reasonable, but we are actually now endangering the substance of our federal government, and we are endangering economic development.
This is not good. This needs to end.
[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]
Erratic Attempts 