What do you think? Should they hold firm with this budget rider until the Democrats cave?
I only voted “No” because you didn’t include options for “Hell No”, “Fuck no”, and “Yes and they should continue to keep the government shut down until it completely destroys their credibility as a political party and no Republican is elected to federal office for another hundred years”.
Why should the federal budget and US economy be seriously threatened by a minority of belligerent children within a respectable political party just because a law passed by Congress, signed by the President and upheld by the US Supreme Court is not to their liking?
Can anyone tell me in all of US history, have we ever had the federal budget deliberately held up so as to repeal another law that passed all of the above hurdles?
Surely there are a few people on this board that support holding the operation of the government hostage in order to achieve their ideological goals.
Ditto…
I can’t say that it’s happened before, but I can say what their alleged justification is. Taken from a letter written by Rep Mark Meadows, signed by 79 of his closest (stupidest) friends:
“James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 58 that ‘the power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon… for obtaining a redress of every grievance…’”
There’s precident, man! :rolleyes:
I am shocked to see that Dopers oppose the government shutdown. 
I think that nobody in Congress should get paid until they settle this thing.
I don’t think that this is going to happen, mind you, it’s just what I think.
We’d have to amend the constitution to do that, and as highly as I think of your average congressperson, I don’t think they’d choose to voluntarily give themselves a stick we can beat them with to do their job.
No, but there’s nothing to stop them from saying “Hey, guy who cuts my paycheck, go ahead and write it out to the VA, or Head Start, or WIC, or heck, just stick it in an envelope and hold onto it til this is over.” The fact that only about a handful have done so is nauseating.
The two issues should not be linked. It’s one thing to shut down things because of issues over the budget, as it had been in the past; it’s another to do it to repeal a law.
I’m the other yes vote. I voted yes because my ideological goal is the destruction of the Republican House majority.
You can’t fix stupid, but you can patronize it.
Better yet, fine them for not doing their jobs - not personal fines - take it from reelection funds. If a rep doesn’t have reelection funds, the party needs to pay.
Not true. They can pass a bill tomorrow that provides that congresscritters draw no salary during government shutdowns. It just has to be prospective to the next election (and thus presumably the next shutdown). Plus, nothing prevents the houses from providing by rule that no member draws a salary during a shutdown.
Which does very little in terms of punishing them now.
I was under the impression that the 27th amendment prohibits changes to congress’s pay unless they take affect after the next election cycle. When you say draw a salary, does that mean something different like they get paid but they can’t cash the check or something?
It prohibits laws changing Congressional pay, but Article I, Section 5 grants Congress broad latitude over its internal workings which SCOTUS has hitherto generally refused to infringe. You understand me correctly; the rule would say “no member shall accept his salary,” or whatever. The purpose of the 27th Amendment is to prevent congress from increasing their salaries, and they can’t do that by rule because they’d have to pass a bill to fund an increase. No bill is required to deal with a bunch of uncashed checks though.
The rules lawyer in me is impressed. The pragmatist is just pissed off.
Well, I’m not a lawyer (yet) and this is my not-quite-expert theory rather than hard fact. I might also add that the amendment prohibits laws “varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives”. One could argue that Senators and Representatives who have allowed the government to shut down are not providing any service requiring compensation.