The last time they did it, they increased their margin in the House, and took back control of the Senate.
I agree with adaher. Mark me down for those keeping score, Elvis.
Was just about to say this.
The last time there was a shutdown, the GOP looked stupid at the time, but several months later they paid no political price for it.
I’m a liberal guy, but that’s just the objective thing that actually happened in 2014.
I’m rooting for another Republican shutdown. Just like I root for the RR to spout more crap about “persecution”.
The only way to avoid a shutdown does NOT merely take the decision to not have a shutdown. It requires progress, the GOP’s biggest allergy. If they would simply forget about SSM, the ACA, bootstrapping ideologies to other bills, denying global warming-- in other words, don’t be a Republican! And all it takes to NOT be a republican is to read a newspaper and stop being afraid of Google. It really takes just seconds to find out that John Wayne Gacy isn’t a famed Western star, or that women can’t shut off their ovaries while being raped.
I did blame the Dems in 2010 when they failed to keep a majority. And we got even worse than I expected: a GOP-run government that absolutely, positively refuses to listen to their voters, only act as puppets to their biggest donors’ wants, and REALLY refuses to progress. Americans want health care. Americans want SSM. It’s done. Over. Period. Same for abortion. Politicians have nothing to do with a woman’s womb. Hey, if they get pregnant, it’s a holy gift, right?
How many times to you need to be told “no” in order to stop acting like a child? It was three times for me as a kid and how many has it been for the GOOPs regarding overturning ACA? 13? 17? How much time/money was spent and/or donated to these dead causes?
But like I said, I’m really hoping for another republican-lead shutdown. It would bring more poor attention to a dead political party.
Making decisions is not one of the Republican’s strong points.
It will work out for Democrats. Just as Democrats are known as the party that raises taxes (even when the Republicans do it), the GOP is the party that shuts down the government, and there is no amount of spin that will change that public perception, regardless of what the reality is.
Ted Cruz failing to get senators to sign up to a shutdown pledge. (Thank you, autocorrect, for fixing my “shitdown pledge” to something more family friendly, but I think my original term was more accurate.)
Meh. There’ve been 18 shutdowns since 1976 and the implementation of current budgeting rules. Some have been strictly “in-house” disagreements within one party. Some have seen about issues that break along bipartisan lines. Some have been about issues that break very clearly along partisan lines. None of it is new or particularly special. All took two sides willing to risk shutdown as a negotiating technique to get their way.
So what? There’s no election this year.
And all but maybe two of them were too short for anyone except serious political geeks to remember. There was the 1995-96 shutdown, and there was the 2013 shutdown. Instances of the government technically shutting down at midnight September 30, and un-shutting down by 3am October 1, don’t count as far as most of us are concerned.
Yeah, but surely you remember why.
As the shutdown was ending, the disaster with the healthcare.gov website was the big news, and by the time the website finally got fixed, people had practically forgotten about the shutdown.
And sure, there will always be some shiny toy for the Fox News crew to get worked up about, but this one made a difference because real people, people you knew, were trying to get into the website and buy health coverage, and not being able to do jack shit. This wasn’t something people may be against but don’t really give a shit about, like the Iran deal.
Yeah, they’ve avoided one out of one starting in 2014.
Well, as a gummint worker, it’ll be in my best interest, because if there’s a shutdown I’ll be able to get some projects done around the house while the Firebug’s off at school. Blocks of time where I can work on stuff without interruption are a precious commodity in the life of a parent of an 8 year old boy. I’m already putting together my list.
The Republicans took 9(!) seats in the Senate because of the healthcare website. That’s an interesting, um, theory.
I think you may be overestimating the effect healthcare dot gov had on the election. An estimated 11.7 million people enrolled for 2015 (Nov 2014-Feb 2015 enrollment period.) That’s out of a total population of 320+ million, or less than 4%.
I’m pretty sure gerrymandering and the lowest voter turnout in 70 years was a bigger factor.
I’ll tentatively add a third vote in favor of no shutdown, or at most 1-2 days. Shutting down the government is like, having a baby, starting an unwinnable war or binge drinking. The next day you say “never again” and that promise will last until you have forgotten how bad you felt afterwards. The hangover from the last shutdown is too fresh in Congress’s minds for them to want to go through that all over again. It will take another decade or so for a new bunch of conservatives to come in and think it sounds like a good idea.
Its possible that a short shutdown may happen as a result of running out of time as they try to figure out the proper arrangement that puts all the groups on the same page, but there won’t be a long term standoff with each side waiting for the other to side to blink.
It’s an interesting theory, but what does this have to do with what I just said?
Where do I estimate the effect that healthcare.gov had on the election?
You must be confusing me with someone else. Damned if I know who, though.
New Geico commercial: If you’re a Republican, you shut down the government. It’s what you do.
Yes, there will be a shutdown. When Wall Street has had enough, they’ll pull their puppet strings and put an end to it. Republicans will whine if the WW II memorial is closed, everybody will blame Republicans in 2015 and promptly forget about it in 2016. Impact on the election is minimal.
There’s still a cumulative effect, though. The longer they act childishly, the less time and the more difficulty they’ll have in somehow appearing responsible to the electorate.
Not to their base – which is the problem. They need to act childish to get nominated and then adult to get elected.
Benen has a good piece on why he thinks a shutdown is likely:
If even Boehner’s gonna spew bullshit about selling baby parts, there aren’t any adults in the room in the GOP House caucus.
More Benen:
If Boehner wanted to pass a continuing resolution, he’d need to split off 30 GOP House members who were willing to vote for a CR that the House Dems were OK with, and that Mitch McConnell’s could live with in order to pass the Senate as well.
It could happen, but I don’t see the stars aligning.
Please forgive this awful phrase, but one cannot discount that Boehner has to throw red meat to his conservative foes if he wishes to remain Speaker for another two weeks.
If there aren’t 30 House Republicans who will vote with Boehner, then he is going to have to resign before Columbus Day. Nobody can be Speaker if they can’t manage to get 12% of their caucus to vote with them.