The federal government's fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, and this year it may end with a bang.
Or, more accurately, a government-wide shutdown. The reason is the same as it was back in May: a group of Republicans believe Uncle Sam spends too much and needs to make cuts. Were that all they believed, we might be getting somewhere.
But many of these same GOP lawmakers are veering from the fiscal script, saying they won't vote to keep Uncle Sam's lights on unless the House begins impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden. According to reporting in The Hill:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has repeatedly offered support for McCarthy, said she will not vote to fund the government unless the House opens an impeachment inquiry into Biden.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), decidedly not a McCarthy ally, suggested he could force a vote on ousting the Speaker if he does not push forward on investigations of Biden and other officials.
“[I]f Speaker McCarthy stands in our way, he may not have the job long,” Gaetz wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
While one should expect nothing less from such attention-seeking pols, the narrow Republican House majority gives such members far more influence over essential government functions than would otherwise be expected….or tolerated.
And it isn't out of the question they will use their temporary hold on power as leverage to do whatever mischief suits their fanbases and social media channels. Never mind the damage it may inflict on the Republic.
Were these members at all serious, they would be pursuing meaningful spending reform – and nothing else. Heaven knows there's plenty of spending that needs to be reformed, not the least of which are the mammoth entitlement programs that are swallowing the budget.
But let's assume these stunt pols get what they want: a shutdown over this, that, and the other matter that has nothing to do with spending. Do they genuinely believe that shuttering government's doors will win support to their cause?
Apparently, they do. Were they at all interested in history, however, these members would know that government shutdowns have generally ended badly for the GOP, with the party getting the blame for closing the Washington Monument and worse, for achieving next to nothing in the way of spending reduction. Such is the quality of representation in some parts of official Washington these days. Rather than confront the real problems of deficits and debt, we get meme-ready causes that only serve to rile up the very online.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Agree with both of these people need to cut funding to irs, fbi, doj, epa, nsa, large cut defund any more money going to Ukrainian, defund completely planned parenthood, and other organizations that are not really necessary there is many, blm, antifa, aclu, they are really terrorist organizations threatening to get their way get them gone
I think it’s probably a reality that Biden has indeed committed impeachable offenses and an inquiry is justified. So I’m not sure the threats where simply grandstanding or the result of a sincerely held belief. My fear about impeaching the president is that 1. it has a history of backfiring on the party initiating the process and 2. If we do impeach Biden we go from the frying pan to the fire because that means we get KAMALA as president which is even scarier. Thankfully now that McCarthy has authorized the inquiry we should be able to work on the spending bill. Let’s urge the majority to go ahead and conduct the inquiry but hold off on any drastic action. Let’s focus on winning in ’24.
Who will suffer from a government shutdown? Government employees. And who are sucking our country dry? Government employees. So I say, either cut the spending or shutdown. The rest of us will survive and we will see that the innocent also survive.Lets get our government under control. They work for us, not the opposite.
Would that govt employees actually ‘suffered’– as in not getting paid. They merely get an extra vacation paid after the govt. resumes. That’s not suffering, and they are so well paid annually they can afford to keep cash for such occasions. A better deal would be to shut down the government , or at least the vast majority of it, permanently . . . finally putting the Tenth Amendment into reality instead of with.
The Government never shot down. DC trying to scare people for years and years. That’s tactic work all the time.
If they don’t have the votes for impeachment they don’t have them and it has nothing to do with the budget. As have said many times, the GOP is only good at one thing and that is shooting themselves in the foot and they are making sure they loose another election. If the nation get shut down because of this the GOP will loose big time, can they be even dumber than I thought they were?
Not in my book they don’t. They’re acting more American than the other congress critters of both parties.
Just who’d miss the “government”?
In the first place, it really won’t shutdown. In the second place it should shutdown. The only duty of the federal government is for defense, tariff and trade duties, and interstate regulation. Leave us alone!
Impeachment INQUIRY is okay so long as slow-walked (using a page from the DNC script) until November 10, 2024. We cannot tolerate a president Kamala.
Seems like almost everyone in the comments section feels the writer of this article is writing about things he knows precious little about – same for me.