If I understand this correctly, this actually sounds doable - if Republicans can get their stuff together to actually follow through on this strategy, and pass several (many?) funding bills for separate departments instead of one big one. Since this is budget-related, they will only need 51 votes in the Senate, and they can put on Obama’s desk quite a few funding bills that he cannot object to, and would damage himself and Democrats vetoing.
Then, one of the bills would have funding for the part of the government that would implement the Obama’s immigration executive order and it would have the wording thwarting the implementation. He can veto it - but that would not be “government shutdown”. It would just shut down that part of the government and would clearly be his to own.
Seems like a good strategy. Anyone think it will happen? Will Republicans finally be smart enough to do something right?
I think the Republicans would rather Obama do it, so they can complain about it. I don’t think they ave any real objection to the merits of Obama’s plan, and I doubt they see any upside in a complicated scheme to prevent it from happening.
Note that I didn’t ask whether it is a good idea to thwart Obama’s executive orders - it’s pretty obvious what each poster’s opinion is on that even before he/she posts.
I wanted to discuss whether the strategy is workable at all, and if so, if Republicans are capable of executing it.
The blame may be shared, or even fall fully on Republicans, but it will not be a “government shutdown”, or anything even resembling it. At most, it will defund EPA for a while, for example. Until Obama sees the light. It’s definitely worth it to stop the Presidential overreach.
Obama might not have much to lose by vetoing each bill, if the GOP is able to get this together. He might be able to successfully argue that the government has never been funded this way, and it’s just a dumb trick.
I think it will be very damaging to Obama and to Democrats to veto bills in which they cannot point to anything objectionable. “Obama vetoed my food stamps because he didn’t like the way Republicans passed the bill!”. Good luck with that.
The well gets poisoned by the choice of the word “amnesty” in the thread title. Why would you be surprised that someone who would do that would also utilize breitbart as a source?
I assure you, when Republicans do something right*, it’s entirely by accident. “Smart” has nothing to do with it.
*I wish to make it clear that there is a definite distinction to be made between “right” and “beneficial to the GOP.” They’re practically non-intersecting sets.
I agree with a pundit (can’t remember who) that I heard over the weekend-- whenever the government is shut down, by whatever means, people blame Congress, not the president.
In the strategy described in the OP, it would be unmistakeably Obama shutting down government, department by department, by vetoing bills in which he could point to nothing objectionable - if he decided to veto them. Or, if he decided to veto just the one, it would not be a “government shutdown”.
You overestimate the analytical ability of most Americans. They don’t follow all the ins and out like you do. All they know is that the government was shut down. Who shuts down the government? Congress.
They don’t sit around the dinner table like some political Seder asking: Why is this shutdown different from every other shutdown?
