"... guided by White House budget director Russell Vought, an architect of the controversial Project 2025 playbook for Trump’s second term. Federal funds expire when the fiscal year ends Tuesday night, and Congress appears deadlocked over a stopgap measure that would keep agencies online for seven weeks while long-term negotiations continue. Under the Vought plan, the only agencies that would remain operating apace are those that received money in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the $4.1 trillion tax and immigration package that Congress passed in July. The Defense and Homeland Security departments were the main beneficiaries.The result, both during and potentially after a shutdown, could be a federal government dramatically reoriented to defense, immigration and law enforcement — and not much else...."
I'm reading
"Trump’s shutdown plans: Mass layoffs, deregulation, military deployments/The White House’s call for mass layoffs in a looming shutdown tracks with past administration efforts to defang much of the federal government" (WaPo)(gift link).
Is this something like a return to DOGE? DOGE had "Musk’s high-visibility 'move fast and break things' ethos. But Vought, people in and around the administration say, has been quietly potent, drawing on four years out of government to surgically plan measures that overhaul the executive branch and Trump’s power."
So Vought is low-visibility, move slow, and wait for Congress to break everything, then put it together in the way you've been quietly calculating for decades.
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50 comments:
and Congress appears deadlocked
Nope.
The House passed a clean bill.
The Senate is ready to do the same.
The minority party in the Senate is demanding concessions.
No.
Elections have consequences.
If the government is shut down, will Trump instruct lackeys to restrict access to the monuments in Washington DC? Will he have government slugs put up barriers blocking scenic views on our nation's highways? Because I remember a President who did that.
No.
This administration is going to get rid of people who've spent their entire, federal-government careers pissing on people like me ... while pulling down six-figure salaries as they sit on their asses.
THIS is what I voted for.
EXCELLENT. I voted for this.
It's nice to see both sides of the aisle working together, isn't it?
This is routine DC Kabuki theater until a shutdown happens. Senators love to position themselves as independent free-thinkers, as statewide elections often demand purple politics. In some elections Trump remains toxic, so they want to show that they put up fight.
The Republicans control the House, Senate, and Presidency, so a shutdown now would confirm weakness and internal divisions. Quite a few John McCain-like Republicans have been pushed into the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" politics -- as they couldn't stomach Biden's Woke and massive spending on nonsense. The power establishment stills hates Trump and a lot of what he stands for.
Regarding the potential return of DOGE -- cue the self-humiliation. Never in my life have I seen so much potential wasted on such ignorant nonsense. I wanted Musk to succeed, but break stuff and fail he did. He over promised but delivered almost nothing. He'd have fired himself if employed at Tesla or SpaceX or X. Then, he attacked Trump, attempted to form a fantasy rebel political party, and slunk away from the public spotlight. Quoting Trump on Musk: "Was it all b*llshit?"
Vought saw this and hopefully relearned:
"Everyone has a plan until punched in the face."
Mass layoffs - hysteria! Cats and dogs living together! Total chaos!
one more
This is brilliant. Go right ahead with the shutdown Dems and watch your voters lose their jobs and pensions.
I’d prefer a budget but maybe this works the way it could. When the left has been using government against the will of voters, against voters, it would be nice to get rid of those chunks of government…
oh NO!
if the republicans Don't do EXACTLY what the democrats want..
The democrats will give the republicans EXACTLY what the republicans want.
remember that old movie?
where the black man holds a gun to his own head?
and screams: "one move, and the Nword gets it!"
??
could some democrat expert (mark? gadfly? inga?)
explain this to me like i'm a brain damaged old biker?
"This is brilliant. Go right ahead with the shutdown Dems and watch your voters lose their jobs and pensions."
And publicize how Republicans are gleeful about those job losses and lives wrecked. Only one year until midterms.
“One move and the Nword gets it!”
These are people of the Democrat Party. The common clay of the new urban elites. You know... morons.
Mark is unaware that the Republican base has been voting for exactly that scale of Federal government downsizing for 40 years, that it was the driving energy behind the Tea Party and that the Uniparty "Republicans" in DC were just as guilty as any Democrat for bloating the bureaucracy. It's a basic fact of the Trump Era that low information voters continually miss, perhaps purposely: Trump is at war with corrupt and lazy bureaucracy and the fat old lazy farts who created it and enriched themselves off of it.
This time don't pay back wages to people who stayed home. That would change the dynamics and balance the budget both.
…guided by White House budget director Russell Vought, an architect of the controversial Project 2025 playbook for Trump’s second term.
“I always wanted to be an architect.”
- George Costanza
I wonder if Russell Vought has Jason Alexander’s car?
…Check the bite marks on the pencil he found inside!
So Vought is low-visibility, move slow, and wait for Congress to break everything, then put it together in the way you've been quietly calculating for decades.
@Althouse, you write that as though it’s a bad thing.
The Schumer shutdown has a nice ring to it. And is the Washing Post dead naming the Department of War?
Only one year until midterms.
The type of people who are apt to lose their jobs in the shutdown were not going to vote Republican anyway. The people who are inconvenienced by a shutdown will learn that the Democrats took federal services away from them to fund better services for the Dem’s beloved illegal immigrants than the US citizens are getting. How do you think they’ll vote during midterms, Einstein?
Mark said...
"This is brilliant. Go right ahead with the shutdown Dems and watch your voters lose their jobs and pensions."
"And publicize how Republicans are gleeful about those job losses and lives wrecked. Only one year until midterms."
Ohhhh. You mean like when tech companies fire thousands of workers in order to hire H1 visa labor? Like that?
On another note. How's Tesla doing? Is Musk broke yet?
"dramatically reoriented to defense, immigration and law enforcement — and not much else...."
Add the treasury and regulating interstate and international commerce and we're back to only the constitutionally provided functions. Great.
FTA:The result, both during and potentially after a shutdown, could be a federal government dramatically reoriented to defense, immigration and law enforcement — and not much else...."
People, do you realize what this means? The federal government would be doing only . . . what it's supposed to do under the Constitution.
’And publicize how Republicans are gleeful about those job losses and lives wrecked.’
Why doesn’t anyone care about those poor government bureaucrats?! lol
Demthink is not prepared for a Trumpthink shutdown.
Not the briar patch!
If this comes to pass, even with their grip on the media, the Progressive Left stands a good chance of losing this argument and being painted with the blame for the shutdown. If they get the blame, they're likely to lose badly at the midterms. They're a Death Cult - but are they suicidal yet?
Trump is a beast, but in a good way.
There have been many government shutdowns. Each time, it's like a scrum, with D's and R's trying to push the blame. The non-essential workers clean out the office refrigerator, then go home until it's sorted out, confident that their back pay will come through eventually.
Trump smiles in the face of a shutdown. Everybody starts getting that briar patch feeling. This time non-essential workers are going to take their personal belongings home with them, and update the resume.
Trump makes this all seem so easy. JD Vance better be taking good notes.
From the article,
"Those social safety net programs are the main driver of the United States’ $37.4 trillion of debt, not the federal workforce or agency spending.
The U.S. spent $6.8 trillion in the last completed fiscal year; $4.1 trillion of that amount was tied to benefit programs, not the individual agencies that Congress funds each year."
This is absolutely true. But the problem with the way the Lefty mind works is that statements like this are offered up for the rationale of something like, "See, the sprawling bureaucracy isn't even the main cause of the of the deficit so it makes no sense to cut it. Let us keep our political patronage jobs. But also if you try any sort of cuts, reform, or even just slowing the growth of entitlement spending we will accuse of trying to kill people." The left are not trustworthy partners in democracy anymore, and honestly haven't been for a while.
I can't wait to see it. If they attach a great info campaign to it, to show the American people how repetitive, costly, and inefficient our $4.7 Trillion dollar government is, they may be able to get away with some of this.
Meep-meep!
"The U.S. spent $6.8 trillion in the last completed fiscal year; $4.1 trillion of that amount was tied to benefit programs, not the individual agencies that Congress funds each year."
Sure. Pay no attention to the measly $2,700,000,000,000 of other spending. It's fine.
Our lovely Hostess has another concluding paragraph. Bravo.
I have lost track of the number of shutdowns the Republicans have triggered in the past. The Republican model is to hold the common good hostage to extort tax-subsidized rents to the superrich.
Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency right now. We don't even have to get to the merits of the case regarding whether or not the Democrats demands are reasonable or not (and visa versa Republicans).
The real issue is chronic dysfunction that has plagued the Republican Party for the better part of the past 15 years and its own internal dysfunction. The fact that Democrats have any leverage in this equation is a byproduct of a lack of internal cohesion within the Republican Party. Additionally, the Republican leaders -- the ones with any sense at least -- need Democratic votes to restore health care funding, because the Republicans cut health care funding a few months ago in Trump Make American Last Spending Bill.
The party in power gets credit or blame for the overall condition of things, regardless of whether the opposition party plays a constructive of destructive role. In the case of a shutdown involving an unpopular president too, it is entirely possible that the opposition party will actually receive a boost in its popularity for standing up to the unpopular president.
Back in 2018 after the mid-terms, the Democrats cut a budget deal with Republicans prior to retaking the majority in the House of Representatives. Trump ended up reneging on the deal, which then resulted in another budget fight. Those issues and Trump's chronic unreliability and penchant for constantly negotiating in bad faith, also color these issues.
Senate Republicans do not need the Democrats to pass the continuing resolution. All they need do is abolish the filibuster. At that point they will fully own the consequences of their budget. Democrats should embrace this opportunity to force Republicans to own their policies.
A number of my AWFL friends have daughters with master degrees in public policy-orientated programs, towards end-goal of future secure federal agency employment position as pencil-pushing paper-shuffling "policy director". The girls are all sitting at home, in their parent-paid apartments, with their parent-paid posh lifestyles of designer clothes and fancy cocktails, no boyfriends, no viable desirable jobs available. These AWFL moms are all furious, angry posts and texts flying, heartsick that their overachiever daughters are not properly launched, not dating the right guys, not meeting parental expectations of six figure salaries to support their upscale metro-urban yuppie lifestyles.
Team Trump is probably screaming, "Don't throw me in that briar patch whatever you do!" And the Dims who are predisposed to think Trump is stupid are getting ready to do just that.
It kinda looks like Vought and Trump are playing 3-dimensional chess, with Schumer and Jefferies focusing on only 1 dimension.
Pop the popcorn, please!
Democratic debt offered a comforting, functional delusion. Let's see if there is a viable alternative that will not throw out the baby with the bathwater as a fetus... feature.
I predict Schumer eventually folds like a cheap suit. The truth is that the vast majority of the country won't notice all the paper pushers losing their jobs in the federal government. The very fact that past shutdowns furloughed non-essential personnel for paid vacations tells you exactly the truth- there are tons of non-essential workers in the federal government.
So, I am going to bookmark this thread because Bich has advocated for Republicans to ax the filibuster.
Kakistocracy said...
I have lost track of the number
TSLA is 440
Congressional Choice or choice? That is the question. Time will tell.
Man, I can not WAIT for this shutdown. Washington DC real estate agents, better get ready.
Tesla shares rally after Elon Musk buys about $1bn of stock ~ FT
‘Stock in electric-vehicle maker jumps after regulatory filing discloses purchase’
Musk is just bidding up the value of his existing (much larger) shareholding. And doing it with money borrowed against that existing shareholding.
Borrow a billion and that makes your holdings appreciate $20 billion in value. This is exhibit A for markets can be and stay irrational for a long time.
BMW and Mercedes generated over 1.5 times as much revenue as Tesla, yet their market caps are about 20 times smaller.
Tesla’s value was always in its promise for the future. But now that the future of EVs looks increasingly Chinese, I have no idea what is underpinning Tesla’s value.
"Republicans are gleeful about those job losses and lives wrecked."
Wrecked? If getting laid off wrecks your life, it's only because you assumed you had a lifetime sinecure and weren't paying attention. To put this in perspective, in 2024 nearly 20 million privately employed Americans were laid off or terminated. And that's pretty much average for a non-recession year. Not saying it's easy, but catastrophic? Not for otherwise competent people.
From the time of Speaker Gingrich's reign, I remember the comeback to the would be horrors of a shutdown was that people would not be able to visit the National Parks.
But that was before the Covid lockdowns.
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