Everybody in the media keeps saying that this GOP controlled House will lead to the greatest do nothing congress in modern memory or history. I respectfully disagree. While this congress will be nowhere near as productive as the Democratic controlled last one, it won’t be totally useless. Simply because it can’t be. There’s shit that has to get done.
In tonight’s SOTU I look for Biden to largely maintain a hopeful, positive note. He’ll highlight the accomplishments of his administration, highlighting the ones like the Inflation Reduction Act, and Infrastructure, which he will reap the popularity points for when they truly become active and start showing tangible results this year. He’ll spotlight the record low unemployment, booming job market, lower gas prices and declining inflation. And he’ll dare the GOP House to snub him now, after everything they accomplished the last two years.
But I also expect that Biden will will drop the hammer right on the GOP’s head. He’ll flatly declare that he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. He’ll demand a clean debt ceiling increase, and point out how the same GOP caucus voted without a whimper to raise it during Trump’s exploding national debt festival. And while he’ll be open and amenable to any and all reasonable spending cuts that reduce the national debt, Medicare and Social Security are off the table. He can hammer home the point by reminding the GOP how he has already cut the national debt by $1.3 trillion in his first two years.
And when it’s all over, no matter how Hucky Boo-Boo whines in the GOP’s response, and no matter how much Squeaker Cave In McCarthy huffs about Biden’s occasional combative and arrogant tone, nothing will change. Because this is a rare cycle, and Biden is in the drivers seat.
This is a strange SOTU cycle for a couple of reasons. First, this SOTU kicks off a new presidential election cycle, with divided government. But what adds hot sauce to the chili is the fact that this year there are several critical issues that congress must deal with, this year, and some of them are issues that the GOP itself created and kicked the can down the road. Let’s look.
Raising the debt ceiling – This has to get done, and McCarthy knows it as well as Biden does, and moreover, so does his entire bomb throwing caucus. This is why McCarthy struck a quiet, positive tone coming out of the meeting with Biden, and promising to continue talking. He already knows that his thorny Freedom Caucus is only interested in performance art to increase their media street creds, and their fundraising. They could give a shit less about the deficit.
What will happen is that McCarthy will let his howler monkeys throw shit balls all over while he negotiates a clean debt ceiling with enough sane moderate GOP reps to bring the Democratic caucus on board. He’ let the Freedom caucus call him weak and feckless, threatening a vote of no confidence, while telling them he’ll let them get their pound of flesh in the next round.
The Federal Budget – Yes folks, once again we have to pass another federal budget, that’s why they call the goddamned thing the annual federal budget. And in this instance, the GOP controlled House has no choice but to pass a fiscal budget, for one simple reason. The last thing that the House GOP wants to do is to kick the can down the road with a continuing resolution that takes it into the spring of 2024, when the presidential primary season is getting into full swing. The GOP has to pass a clean, complete budget now, and then kick the can down the road next August or September, to punt it past the election and into the lame duck.
And this is where McCarthy will let his howler monkeys off of the island. And Biden will be happy to let him, because he’s a man sitting at the table with three aces in his hand, and they haven’t even flipped the hole card yet.
Hell, the GOP has already taken Social security, Medicare, and the military off of the table for cuts. News Flash! If you want to cut the deficit, those three mandatory spending programs are where the bulk of the national debt lies! The rest of the smaller federal discretionary budget is chock-a-block full of wasteful spending you can cut. How about the Moherds subsistence Act at a cool $50 million, or the national beekeepers subsidy at almost $80 million? There is an almost neverending cornucopia of wasteful spending in the discretionary federal budget, most of them with an impressive number of zeroes after them that, all combined, don’t amount to a bowl of piss Jack Daniels. Let the Freedom caucus go wild licking their nuts about all of the sofa cushion change they’re savving.
The Farm Bill – Don’t even get me started on this one. I would be overjoyed if somebody took the Omnibus Farm Bill out behind the stables, and whacked it with an axe. The Farm Bill is the home of the most profligate waste that the federal budget has to offer. And it’s that way for two reasons.
First, it’s misguided. The Farm Bill is bursting with wasteful programs that encouraged farmers to overextend their income with cheap loans, and nonsensical insurance programs that are so stupid that they allow a farmer to claimonthem evenifthey didn’tsignupandcongribute! Here’s an Example. There’s a program called the Soil Conservation Program that will pay a farmer for leaving his field fallow for a year at the maximum value of the crops could produce, at the maximum crop rate, no matter what the actual conditions on the ground were. Look, I get the idea. Take a year, fertilize the ground and let it heal. But pay on the amount of the last recorded harvest!, and not on some nonsensical number the farmer names for maximum productivity. That’s like Trump determining the value of his shitty properties.
The second reason is unbridled corporate greed. While these programs may be misguided, the majority of them were passed decades ago, in order to protect small family farms that busted their asses to feed the rest of us. But the simple fact is that they don’t exist anymore! A little quick research showed that there are fewer than 200,000 family owned farms with a revenue of under $500,000 operating today. The rest of the nations farming id done by Con-Agra Combines, national, and in some cases multi national agriculture companies who run farming as a for profit business. And the sad thing is that these companies qualify for tax breaks and benefits that family farms don’t even qualify for.
Considering the fact that the great majority of the GOP’s non old, scared white vote is in rural America, you can bet your ass they’re going to be in the maximum push to get this done soonest, and in the most favorable terms possible, in order to have something to take home to their constituents.
Re-Authorizing the FAA – I know, this sounds too stupid to even be a thing. But apparently there are federal agencies out there that have to come before congress periodically for re-authorization. It happens I guess. After all, the Clinton era Assault Weapons Ban had a sunset clause on it that allowed Bush Lite to flood our streets with AR-15’s.
And now apparently the FAA is up for reauthorization. This one should be a no brainer. After all, pretty much every GOP member who doesn’t live in Virginia, Washington DC\, or Maryland hops on a jet every Friday to go home. I would expect this to slide through like shit through a goose, especially with their recent glitches. Look for congress to increase spending for controllers, and updated technology to keep us from crashing into each other.
See what I’m talking about? There are several issues out there that the congress must deal with this year. And several of them are in the GOP”S best interest to deal with most riki-tik. As long as Biden keeps touting bipartisanship in his speeches, then he can reap the benefits on the campaign trail when the House GOP does what they have no choice but to do. Talk about a rat in a maze.
Any ‘moderates’ in the Guns Over People party probably wished they had Harry potter’s invisibility cloak as their colleagues showed their nazi asses.