So the shutdown is a disaster, and once again, zealous ideological Conservatism has driven Republicans to use the letter of the parliamentary process to abuse its spirit. Nothing can be done about it this time, except for President Obama, Senator Reid, and the rest of the Democrats to hold firm and never waver.
But what about next time? I think we should pester our Democrats to consider this: The next time they run both houses they should set things right, so that this kind of hostage-taking can't happen again.
And it seems to me like there are two easy fixes:
1. The Government Stability Act: Budgets renew automatically. If the Congress can't pass a new one, the old one stays in effect, give or take changes mandated by particular legislation.
2. The Government Reliability Act: Repeal the debt ceiling. The United States is like the Lannisters from Game of Thrones: We always pays our debts.
1+2. The Government Stability and Reliability Act: Pass both fixes as one bill.
There, fixed it for ya! Discussion below the fold.
1. The reasoning for the debt limit and budget ending is flawed. The idea behind these is the flawed notion that the threat of severe punishment is a good motivator. Call it the Sword of Damocles approach: If you fail, you'll suffer greatly. So obviously, you'll succeed.
The idea is that these rules will make Congress pass a budget and avoid too much debt by hanging a sword of Damocles over their head--- if they don't, the government shuts down or defaults. Sink or swim. Obviously, they'll swim, right?
Wrong. This approach appeals to a lot of people, but unfortunately accepting it requires completely forgetting about human nature. The threat of a strong punishment is not a deterrent, plain and simple. The reason is common sense: You can only get punished if you get caught, and nobody thinks they'll get caught. (Note: What does succeed at deterrence is the certainty of getting caught.) In the case of the shutdown crisis, the Republicans decided to jump under the sword, confident it wouldn't fall and wreck them.
It's already turning out dangerous for them. It's to be expected; everyone who adopts this approach forgets human nature, and it shorts their logic. The failure of the Sword of Damocles approach is what's behind mandatory minimums, stand-your-ground laws, ending welfare, leaving people uninsured, and other failed conservative experiments. Like this shutdown.
Anyways, not only are these rules dangerous parliamentary nonsense, getting rid of them is literally cost-free:
2. The debt ceiling is stupid and useless
The debt ceiling is ridiculous feel-good fluff. The federal debt ceiling first appeared in 1917 (right alongside the newfangled income tax). It is based on so-called debt limits that cities and states already had in place. At first it sounds great because it sounds like a credit limit--- this will stop 'spending', the idea goes. But no, that's not how it works.
It doesn't stop your government from 'spending', it stops it from paying its bills. "What's the difference?" you ask. "If you can't pay you can't spend." Ah, but you can! You see, I put 'spending' in scare quotes for a reason: People often use it with an implied "on new stuff", so when they say "cut spending" they really mean "cut buying new stuff". But that's not how things work when you have debt.
When you have debt you not only pay for new stuff, you pay for new stuff AND old stuff you haven't paid for. If you cut spending on new stuff, you still have to pay back what you borrowed for the old stuff. Plus the interest. Ah yes, the interest. That's "new stuff" that you're not choosing to buy--- it's foisted upon you by the terms of your lending agreement.
And boy do we have a lot that isn't paid for yet. Starting with the Iraq War, the Bush tax cuts (like those rebate checks we got--- we're paying now for the extra deficit that created), Bush's medicare expansion... and so forth.
So: The debt ceiling can't stop new spending. It only cuts off paying for spending you've already made. Arbitrarily and on principle. Which is the absolute worst reason to make any financial decision apart from "I just snorted a barrel of cocaine and the chain-smoking unicorn in my living room told me to."
2. The budget should continue automatically.
The Antideficiency Act dates back to 1884 and outlaws agencies from spending money that hasn't already been appropriated. That's because agencies (even the military) would purposely blow their budgets early, requiring Congress to pony up extra funds to keep the agencies open year round. This act is often cited as a cause for the shutdown. But what I have in mind wouldn't violate that act--- it simply renews the previous year's appropriations pro rata, for a month at a time, say. This won't be so easy for programs meant to come into existence whose budgets aren't pre-set by legislation (such as the ACA). But those details could be ironed out, I bet.
Overall, these two fixes would eliminate the kinds of showdowns we've been seeing for thirty some-odd years now. It's perfectly possible that Republicans will find new ways to control the government without having to actually win elections. But there's no need for us to make it easier on them, is there?