The same place you get your straw.
Go read the Constitution and report back to us about what you find, 'kay?
LHoD: excited to keep engaging on this when I have more time. The below is a freebie. 
He isn’t arguing that it’s illegal! As he said many times! He is arguing that this way of exercising that power is unethical and unwise.
I agree that it is unwise. Though not unethical.
LHOD is however equating it to murdering puppies and extortion. Others comparing it to hostage taking and terrorism. None of which are apropos.
Absolutely. The problem with this approach is it has no real limits. Theoretically, any party with a House majority can repeat it, for any issue of any size. That’s what makes it unwise, foolish, and – to use your word – problematic.
Sure. But that doesn’t make the House the sole actor. That’s just one course in which they could act.
Well, you now how some people can be. I personally know some people who think that impoverished mothers who’s access to their babies formula has been voided are more important than the dignity of well-fed Republicans who haven’t missed a meal in twenty years.
Wierd, huh?
Of course! Gee, when you look at it that way, both parties are to blame!
Obama. And that’s as good as it gets.
To be fair, I can’t take credit for the puppy-murder analogy: that’s from Terr, one of the shutdown’s apologists. It’s just such a hilarious thing for a conservative to say that I can’t quit teasing him about it.
And I’ve explained above why I consider it to be ethically equivalent to extortion. You’ve said nothing substantive to dispute my assertion.
They did so in error. It was hardly their purpose to create a government even more disfunctional than they one they then had under the Articles of Confederation.
If this month’s issues of the Washington Post could have been passed around Independence Hall in the summer of 1787, they would have seen their error and put in provision for dissolution of the government and new elections.
If the founders had wanted an inconsistently operating and funded government, they could have stuck with the Articles of Confederation.
The main reason for the Constitution was to let the federal government raise taxes. Take that, Tea Party!
While I think the Republicans’ actions are reprehensible, I think some of my liberal brethren have been expressing their outrage in a somewhat misdirected fashion. Most of the outrage seems to have been talking about the blackmailing and extortion aspect. The Republicans are saying “I want X, and if I don’t get it, I will refuse to fund the government”. That is being compared to all sorts of horrible things.
The problem with that basic analogy is that the democrats are, kind of by definition, doing exactly the same thing. In fact, arguably, the democrats are doing it WORSE because the Republicans have backed off their demands at least somewhat while the democrats have been remaining 100% firm and unbudging.
All of which makes it sound like I’m blaming the democrats or accusing them of something, which I’m not at all. What’s the difference?
To me, the key difference is that the fight over Obamacare is a fight that was ALREADY OVER. Imagine instead that when it came time to pass a budget, the Dems thought that the top tax rate should be 35% and the Republicans thought it should be 33%, and neither side would pass the budget without getting what they wanted. (Just to make this example extremely even, let’s suppose that the previous year’s top tax rate was 34%). In this case, both parties are doing exactly what the Republicans are currently being attacked for doing, namely, using the leverage of a government shutdown to try to get their way. In that situation, if one side said “ok, I’m willing to go with 34%” and the other side said “NO NO NO the government shutdown will continue until I get my way completely”, then I would blame the latter side far more than the former for the continued shutdown.
But of course that’s NOT what the current situation is like. There is a method, established in both the constitution and 100s of years of practice, which determines how laws are made, how new programs are created, etc. Obamacare passed along all the steps of that method. There was a big fight, and Obamacare won. And after that it went through the supreme court, and a presidential election viewed as a referendum on it, etc. If the Republicans then turn around at pass-the-budget-time and suddenly refuse to allow Obamacare, which is a maneuver which is legal but is COMPLETELY IN VIOLATION OF THE ESTABLISHED PRECENTS FOR HOW LAWS ARE PASSED, they are trying to change the rules of the game just because they’re losing. And far worse than that, they’re doing it in a way which, once it becomes accepted practice, which it certainly will if it works, will utterly cripple the ability of the federal government to ever do or pass anything again. Which is a BAD THING. The fact that their actions are also playing with people’s lives and the basic functioning and respect of the US government makes it far worse, but the root issue to me is not so much the blackmail/extortion aspect, which is just the means being used, it’s the “wait, we can’t have really lost! there must be another way to get our way!” aspect.
I disagree because, as I’ve said before, Democrats are simply asking for precedent to stand, and that’s the default position away from which one can negotiate.
I’ve been thinking that a constitutional amendment might look like this:
One is certainly needed.
Continuous operation of the government is a core purpose of having a constitution. Every other stable democracy has some system to ensure this. My non-serious preference is Westminster system constitutional monarchy – non-serious because it goes against my country’s history and traditions. But maybe some less radical change, still allowing for early elections if the government seizes up, could start getting traction.
As for your idea that we use the prior year financing if there is no agreement on the current one, it may be better than nothing, but I think it unduly biases in favor of whichever political faction wants no change. It would be OK only until the results of new elections take effect.
Also, proposed amendments have greater chances of passage when they omit the word motherfucker 
I’m certainly not thinking it’s ideal, but I’m not sure what would be better. I do think it’s a lot better than what we have now, which is that if the parties can’t agree, our economy gets shot in the foot.
Maybe some constitutional scholars can clean up the language. But I kind of think it’s perfect the way it is.
No, there’s one obvious tweak to it. “The budget shall be the same as last year’s, except that it shall include funding for all newly passed programs, and will be multiplied by the inflation level for the year as determined by an independent panel of economists who will get $1 million a year for their work, and with jail terms attached if any panel members are found to have allowed themselves to be influenced by anything other than economic statistics. This panel will be appointed by vote of all members of the Federal bench every four years, with similar penalties applying to any judge whose vote is swayed by bribery, and even harsher penalties for any found guilty of attempting to sway said panelists and judges.”
If you don’t include that, conservatives win by not approving the budget in any given year, essentially shrinking the government by letting inflation eat away at the budget, and by not allowing funding for new programs voted on during the year. This addendum keeps things neutral. The bits about the $1 million per year fee for panel members is to keep them unbribable, and the penalties to make it dangerous for them to accept bribes. (Economists do love their subject matter.) The bit about being nominated by the federal judiciary is to prevent influence on the people appointing the panelists, as political types will reflexively try to bribe the panel and the people who nominate them.
I see these safeguards as necessary because the existence of any such amendment will make it the default method of determining the budget. Only veto-proof majorities in both houses would permit the funding of new programs or defunding existing programs. Since much of what Congress does is argue over tiny changes in the existing budget, getting an economist to bump or decrease the inflation level by one one hundredth of a percent would be seen as a very big deal. Without these safeguards, the official inflation numbers would bear about as much resemblance to the actual inflation numbers as the minimum wage now bears to the living wage.
Right. The difference between the D and R positions here is not that the Rs are willing to risk the shutdown and Ds aren’t, nor that the Rs are being stubborn and the Ds aren’t, it’s that the Rs are trying to make an end run to get what they want about something that was already settled, but the Ds aren’t. However, a lot of the rage towards the Rs seems to be failing to make that distinction. Arguably a fairly minor distinction, but one that I think is worth clarifying.
Abraham Lincoln said, " It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination." Is this perhaps no longer true? Has Congress figured out that provision?
The first part I definitely agree with: it’s unacceptable to do an end-run around newly passed legislation by failing to fund the government.
I’m not too worried about the second part: two year’s worth of inflation is unlikely to break the country (unlike two year’s worth of government shutdown would do), and so ballot-box remedies would suffice to get rid of the dumb motherfuckers in that case, especially since they’d have to wear the hat during debates.
It’s disheartening how many problems in America have prison as the solution. And you are not the first on Straight Dope to suggest it has some role in preventing failure to appropriate funds for government activity.
None of the other stable democracies have a government shutdown problem. And none prevent it by threatening economists with jail.
What the US needs right now are new elections. In Britain it only takes a month between calling the election and having it, so any caretaker government isn’t needed long enough to be worth those millions.