7 ms·

"Democrats shut down the government" Republicans hold the majority... hello?

bix6 1y ago
Republicans can’t Math, boss.
prawn 1y ago
In various other countries, if you can't pass a budget, your governance is in question to the point that you face a new election. i.e., it is on you to negotiate more flexibly to avoid this.
- sturadnidge 1y ago
  How many of said countries require more than a simple majority to pass a budget though? To my knowledge the US is quite the exception in that it requires a _special_ majority for such things. A simple majority could be challenging if the government is formed via coalition, but if you have any examples where 1) a single party formed government and 2) a simple majority was the only requirement to pass a budget and 3) a budget failed to pass… then enlighten me by all means!
  - timeon 1y ago
    Single party forming government is already questionable democracy. Edit: At least there is required more than simple majority for some things - as there needs to be compromise (consensus in society). But we see now the flaw that ruling party does not care about compromises.
  - throwup238 1y ago
    Isn’t the super majority for getting over filibusters in the Senate? The catch is that it’s a Senate rule and the Senate sets is own rules via simple majority. There’s nothing really stopping a government with simple majority control across all branches from doing away with the filibuster and ramming the budget through except internal party politics.
    - Terr_ 1y ago
      > a Senate rule and the Senate sets is own rules via simple majority. Right, each house of the US legislature starts the session with a >50% vote to re-adopt a slowly mutating package of rules that it used last time and has carried forward for decades, defining how work is scheduled, what committees exist, how seniority is calculated, who gets the nice office with the window, etc. This leads to the "nuclear option" of a special >50% vote to remove the underlying rule which imposes the larger vote-margin for certain situations.
  - codebje 1y ago
    Here in Australia the (single party) government of the day was dismissed in 1975 after failing to secure a supply bill. The government was dismissed by the Governor General, the Crown's representative in Australia, and the event sparked a bit of a ruckus. Google: The Whitlam Dismissal. There's lots of instances of our government requesting dissolution of the Houses following failure to secure votes, but in most cases they're for things other than operating expense bills, taken as proxies indicating the government does not have the confidence of the House to continue to act. Since failure to secure a bill is grounds for dissolving Parliament, it's not likely to be used for political grandstanding here.
    - sturadnidge 1y ago
      Always good to come across fellow Australians in here! I’d probably argue for an exception on that one, given the Whitlam government didn’t have a senate majority… but at the very least, I feel like a single case in the last 50 years is pretty supportive of my argument. The US government is on the verge of shutdown so often these days that I wonder how many people are desensitised to the situation!
      - Ekaros 1y ago
        How does failing to pass budget affect debt repayments? Could they simply end up defaulting sometime in future? That is not great outlook for a "reserve currency".
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - averageRoyalty 1y ago
      I mean it happened earlier this year in Tasmania, and it was absolutely for grandstanding purposes, given they'd had an election less than a year before.
      - sturadnidge 1y ago
  - dwd 1y ago
    The Australian Government can be dissolved if any bill fails to pass on second introduction, with some caveats. In most cases the executive (formed by the holder of the lower house majority) didn't also hold a simple majority in the Senate, or had defections or independent/minor party objections over the bill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dissolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dissolution
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- danaris 1y ago
  However, while you're absolutely right about the optics, that's fundamentally not how the US government operates. We are not a parliamentary system, and elections happen on a fixed schedule. Unless Congresspeople die or resign, this is the Congress we are stuck with until the midterm elections late next year.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    We really do need some mechanism from the people itself to force a re-election. It can be as high as 75% to publicly convict, but it's clear that sometimes the people themselves need to speak now and not wait 2-6 years to fix bad faith actors. We see how much even 1 year of incompetence can do.
  - prawn 1y ago
    In theory, shouldn't the governing party adjust their position until they get the votes required?
    - danaris 1y ago
      That only works when the governing party cares about governing. The Republican Party has made it painfully clear over the past decade that they care more about winning than governing. The initial stages of this were when they vowed not to let any of Obama's priorities pass, to "make him a one-term president" (in their own words). They have to win, and they have to punish the loser.
parineum 1y ago
Budget requires 60 votes. Denocrats are voting against continuing the current budget that they passed while Joe Biden was president.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  [flagged]
- voxl 1y ago
  [flagged]
- gdulli 1y ago
  Blatantly wrong, since a focus of theirs is extending the current ACA funding from the previous budget which the current proposed budget doesn't have. Do you repeat the talking points sincerely without understanding them, or disingenuously with an understanding of why they're false? I mean, do you understand how many pages and details there are in a federal budget, do you think it's plausible that an incoming administration wouldn't make hundreds of changes from the budget of an administration of the opposite party? That's a plausible scenario?
  - parineum 1y ago
    The funding that is going away from the ACA was emergency funding from COVID that was scheduled to end.
- jsiepkes 1y ago
  Doesn't even matter if it's 60 because the GOP has 3 members voting against. Meaning they couldn't even get 51 if they used budget reconciliation. BTW the reason they can't use budget reconciliation is because of a hole they dug themselves in.
- scrubs 1y ago
  If my mother or other older people i know who need Medicare, medicaid, ssn, snap lose it or see huge increases while taxes are reduced for the top 5% while trump enriches himself while congress remains paid and insured ... I'm gonna have to start getting involved in someway ... these (my mother and friends) people are not lazy assholes. If my ssn is screwed with which I've paid into for decades ... because of interest on debt and other basic financial mismagement ... there's gonna be push back. The overreach of the right is building cases for nyc next lefty mayor (likely) and Sanders, aoc, Robert reichs of the world btw ... too far left can have its own other problems. We don't need that either. We are in serious need of competence and getting the basics done right for the right reasons. While i could go on at length about trump's own rank stupidity we all must see the root cause is an instiutionally corrupt and incompetent congress. That power vacuum is filled by trump now.. but it's congress that bears the ultimate responsibility. Democrats are not criminally so flagrant or culpable but democrat policy and no street smarts didn't help. They are a very weak compeitor.
buckle8017 1y ago
[flagged]
- eeixlk 1y ago
  When you blame one side because neither wants to compromise that just makes you biased. Open to why i'm wrong.
  - flanked-evergl 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - eeixlk 1y ago
      Reasonable Republicans would be embarrassed by this argument.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Context matters. Democrats want to compromise on not slashing Healthcare. I don't see a point in my interest why I'd disagree, therefore the GOP is being unreasonable. You can even call it a selfish standpoint if you want. But if you're working class I fail to see why you'd game the democrats here. The Healthcare premiums hurt red states more anyway.
dannersy 1y ago
Yes and Republicans deliberately didn't show up. If people watched CSPAN instead of getting their news from social media, it would be obvious to everyone who is responsible.
lazyeye 1y ago
"There isn't any substantive reason why there ought to be a government shutdown. This is something that has been done routinely, as I said, 13 different times when the Democrats had the majority. But we are not going to be held hostage for over $1 trillion in new spending on a continuing resolution," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the vote.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  Is that "new spending" actually spending that was just cut by the Republican majority in the BBB?
  - lazyeye 1y ago
    From what I understand the majority of the desired spending is on welfare for illegal immigrants. If true, then it's reasonable to push back against it I think.
    - pseudalopex 1y ago
      The Democrats are pushing to continue more generous federal subsidies to help Americans afford Obamacare policies and to reverse deep cuts to Medicaid contained in Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda package. But neither of those changes would provide health coverage to undocumented immigrants, since they aren’t eligible for either program.[1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/politics/fact-check-trump-free-health-care-immigration https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/politics/fact-check-trump-fre...
      - lazyeye 1y ago
        [flagged]
    - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
      That is certainly what JD Vance is claiming. He knows it's not true, but he keeps saying it because he also knows he can lie to his supporters and they either won't care, or won't actually try to find out the truth. Same with his lie that there are liberal groups funding people like the Utah shooter. It's complete bullshit and he knows it. He is one of the most sleazy people in politics right now, and that's saying something.
burnt-resistor 1y ago
This is the least productive Congressional session in history. It's a tiny majority. Also, the pretend Christian head of the House refuses to swear in Adelita Grijalva who was duly elected. The modern House has very little real power compared to the Senate.
incomingpain 1y ago
>Republicans hold the majority... hello? The house has a majority; republicans control that. The senate requires 60 votes in order to control which the republicans dont have. So the democrats absolutely can and have shutdown the government.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  The Republicans only require 50 votes to get rid of the 60 vote rule. They can do it any time they want, but then the jig would be up, and they wouldn't be able to blame Democrats any more. They think it's better for them politically to keep blaming the Democrats than to take responsibility for their own choices. I really can't blame them, they have made some pretty bad choices recently. Back in normal times, the Democrats and Republicans would have been able to negotiate something, because everybody assumed the president would obey whatever budget they passed. But now even if they negotiate something, the president just cuts whatever he doesn't like, and the Republicans in Congress won't hold him to account.
duxup 1y ago
"Nothing is my fault, I'm responsible for nothing, you should be angry / afraid at all times at other people and that is why you should vote for me." - US Conservative Majority who makes policy ...
TiredOfLife 1y ago
When Democrats hold the majority Democrats can't do anything because Republicans don't let them. When Republicans hold the majority Democrats can't do anything because Republicans don't let them.
- myvoiceismypass 1y ago
  > When Democrats hold the majority Democrats can't do anything because Republicans don't let them. The Affordable Care Act came out of one of the only recent years they had the House, Senate, and White House.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  The democrats held the majority for a few months over 12 years ago. And that resulted in the biggest Healthcare policy in history. Republicans have held thr majority for 3 years of trumps 5 so far. What does he have to show for it? I'm genuinely asking: what benefit has he provided to the people wit that unilateral power?
  - parineum 1y ago
    The majority of Americans think that the border situation/immigration has improved since Trump was elected, more than approve of Trump/ICE. Trump also appointed the judges that got Roe overturned, a huge win for his constituency. Democrats certainly don't approve but Republicans don't approve of the ACA so, if that's the bar, neither did anything of significance.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      >The majority of Americans think that the border situation/immigration has improved since Trump was elected Okay, I ask again. What benefit has he provided for the people? Did the jobs come back? Is it safer to walk on the streets? has land value increased? Are groceries less scarce? Border patrol seems to have long forgotten what the end goal is for the americans, and no one can seem to answer thta question anymore (for what I see are clearly obvious reasons). >Trump also appointed the judges that got Roe overturned Same question. Is illegal abortion improving the lives of everyday citizens. >but Republicans don't approve of the ACA Same question. Where's that money going that benefits the americans? This is the whole issue. We can't point to lives being improved, only fears that were manufactured by the same rich elite being quelled. A society powered by fear isn't a democracy.
josephcsible 1y ago
A majority isn't enough to end the shutdown. It takes 60 Senate votes to pass a budget, and there are only 53 Republicans in the Senate.

bix6 1y ago

Republicans can’t Math, boss.

In various other countries, if you can't pass a budget, your governance is in question to the point that you face a new election. i.e., it is on you to negotiate more flexibly to avoid this.

sturadnidge 1y ago
How many of said countries require more than a simple majority to pass a budget though? To my knowledge the US is quite the exception in that it requires a _special_ majority for such things. A simple majority could be challenging if the government is formed via coalition, but if you have any examples where 1) a single party formed government and 2) a simple majority was the only requirement to pass a budget and 3) a budget failed to pass… then enlighten me by all means!
- timeon 1y ago
  Single party forming government is already questionable democracy. Edit: At least there is required more than simple majority for some things - as there needs to be compromise (consensus in society). But we see now the flaw that ruling party does not care about compromises.
- throwup238 1y ago
  Isn’t the super majority for getting over filibusters in the Senate? The catch is that it’s a Senate rule and the Senate sets is own rules via simple majority. There’s nothing really stopping a government with simple majority control across all branches from doing away with the filibuster and ramming the budget through except internal party politics.
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    > a Senate rule and the Senate sets is own rules via simple majority. Right, each house of the US legislature starts the session with a >50% vote to re-adopt a slowly mutating package of rules that it used last time and has carried forward for decades, defining how work is scheduled, what committees exist, how seniority is calculated, who gets the nice office with the window, etc. This leads to the "nuclear option" of a special >50% vote to remove the underlying rule which imposes the larger vote-margin for certain situations.
- codebje 1y ago
  Here in Australia the (single party) government of the day was dismissed in 1975 after failing to secure a supply bill. The government was dismissed by the Governor General, the Crown's representative in Australia, and the event sparked a bit of a ruckus. Google: The Whitlam Dismissal. There's lots of instances of our government requesting dissolution of the Houses following failure to secure votes, but in most cases they're for things other than operating expense bills, taken as proxies indicating the government does not have the confidence of the House to continue to act. Since failure to secure a bill is grounds for dissolving Parliament, it's not likely to be used for political grandstanding here.
  - sturadnidge 1y ago
    Always good to come across fellow Australians in here! I’d probably argue for an exception on that one, given the Whitlam government didn’t have a senate majority… but at the very least, I feel like a single case in the last 50 years is pretty supportive of my argument. The US government is on the verge of shutdown so often these days that I wonder how many people are desensitised to the situation!
    - Ekaros 1y ago
      How does failing to pass budget affect debt repayments? Could they simply end up defaulting sometime in future? That is not great outlook for a "reserve currency".
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - averageRoyalty 1y ago
    I mean it happened earlier this year in Tasmania, and it was absolutely for grandstanding purposes, given they'd had an election less than a year before.
    - sturadnidge 1y ago
- dwd 1y ago
  The Australian Government can be dissolved if any bill fails to pass on second introduction, with some caveats. In most cases the executive (formed by the holder of the lower house majority) didn't also hold a simple majority in the Senate, or had defections or independent/minor party objections over the bill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dissolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dissolution
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
danaris 1y ago
However, while you're absolutely right about the optics, that's fundamentally not how the US government operates. We are not a parliamentary system, and elections happen on a fixed schedule. Unless Congresspeople die or resign, this is the Congress we are stuck with until the midterm elections late next year.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  We really do need some mechanism from the people itself to force a re-election. It can be as high as 75% to publicly convict, but it's clear that sometimes the people themselves need to speak now and not wait 2-6 years to fix bad faith actors. We see how much even 1 year of incompetence can do.
- prawn 1y ago
  In theory, shouldn't the governing party adjust their position until they get the votes required?
  - danaris 1y ago
    That only works when the governing party cares about governing. The Republican Party has made it painfully clear over the past decade that they care more about winning than governing. The initial stages of this were when they vowed not to let any of Obama's priorities pass, to "make him a one-term president" (in their own words). They have to win, and they have to punish the loser.

parineum 1y ago

Budget requires 60 votes. Denocrats are voting against continuing the current budget that they passed while Joe Biden was president.

dyauspitr 1y ago
[flagged]
voxl 1y ago
[flagged]
gdulli 1y ago
Blatantly wrong, since a focus of theirs is extending the current ACA funding from the previous budget which the current proposed budget doesn't have. Do you repeat the talking points sincerely without understanding them, or disingenuously with an understanding of why they're false? I mean, do you understand how many pages and details there are in a federal budget, do you think it's plausible that an incoming administration wouldn't make hundreds of changes from the budget of an administration of the opposite party? That's a plausible scenario?
- parineum 1y ago
  The funding that is going away from the ACA was emergency funding from COVID that was scheduled to end.
jsiepkes 1y ago
Doesn't even matter if it's 60 because the GOP has 3 members voting against. Meaning they couldn't even get 51 if they used budget reconciliation. BTW the reason they can't use budget reconciliation is because of a hole they dug themselves in.
scrubs 1y ago
If my mother or other older people i know who need Medicare, medicaid, ssn, snap lose it or see huge increases while taxes are reduced for the top 5% while trump enriches himself while congress remains paid and insured ... I'm gonna have to start getting involved in someway ... these (my mother and friends) people are not lazy assholes. If my ssn is screwed with which I've paid into for decades ... because of interest on debt and other basic financial mismagement ... there's gonna be push back. The overreach of the right is building cases for nyc next lefty mayor (likely) and Sanders, aoc, Robert reichs of the world btw ... too far left can have its own other problems. We don't need that either. We are in serious need of competence and getting the basics done right for the right reasons. While i could go on at length about trump's own rank stupidity we all must see the root cause is an instiutionally corrupt and incompetent congress. That power vacuum is filled by trump now.. but it's congress that bears the ultimate responsibility. Democrats are not criminally so flagrant or culpable but democrat policy and no street smarts didn't help. They are a very weak compeitor.

buckle8017 1y ago

[flagged]

eeixlk 1y ago
When you blame one side because neither wants to compromise that just makes you biased. Open to why i'm wrong.
- flanked-evergl 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - eeixlk 1y ago
    Reasonable Republicans would be embarrassed by this argument.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  Context matters. Democrats want to compromise on not slashing Healthcare. I don't see a point in my interest why I'd disagree, therefore the GOP is being unreasonable. You can even call it a selfish standpoint if you want. But if you're working class I fail to see why you'd game the democrats here. The Healthcare premiums hurt red states more anyway.

dannersy 1y ago

Yes and Republicans deliberately didn't show up. If people watched CSPAN instead of getting their news from social media, it would be obvious to everyone who is responsible.

lazyeye 1y ago

"There isn't any substantive reason why there ought to be a government shutdown. This is something that has been done routinely, as I said, 13 different times when the Democrats had the majority. But we are not going to be held hostage for over $1 trillion in new spending on a continuing resolution," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the vote.

amanaplanacanal 1y ago
Is that "new spending" actually spending that was just cut by the Republican majority in the BBB?
- lazyeye 1y ago
  From what I understand the majority of the desired spending is on welfare for illegal immigrants. If true, then it's reasonable to push back against it I think.
  - pseudalopex 1y ago
    The Democrats are pushing to continue more generous federal subsidies to help Americans afford Obamacare policies and to reverse deep cuts to Medicaid contained in Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda package. But neither of those changes would provide health coverage to undocumented immigrants, since they aren’t eligible for either program.[1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/politics/fact-check-trump-free-health-care-immigration https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/politics/fact-check-trump-fre...
    - lazyeye 1y ago
      [flagged]
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    That is certainly what JD Vance is claiming. He knows it's not true, but he keeps saying it because he also knows he can lie to his supporters and they either won't care, or won't actually try to find out the truth. Same with his lie that there are liberal groups funding people like the Utah shooter. It's complete bullshit and he knows it. He is one of the most sleazy people in politics right now, and that's saying something.

burnt-resistor 1y ago

This is the least productive Congressional session in history. It's a tiny majority. Also, the pretend Christian head of the House refuses to swear in Adelita Grijalva who was duly elected. The modern House has very little real power compared to the Senate.

incomingpain 1y ago

>Republicans hold the majority... hello? The house has a majority; republicans control that. The senate requires 60 votes in order to control which the republicans dont have. So the democrats absolutely can and have shutdown the government.

amanaplanacanal 1y ago
The Republicans only require 50 votes to get rid of the 60 vote rule. They can do it any time they want, but then the jig would be up, and they wouldn't be able to blame Democrats any more. They think it's better for them politically to keep blaming the Democrats than to take responsibility for their own choices. I really can't blame them, they have made some pretty bad choices recently. Back in normal times, the Democrats and Republicans would have been able to negotiate something, because everybody assumed the president would obey whatever budget they passed. But now even if they negotiate something, the president just cuts whatever he doesn't like, and the Republicans in Congress won't hold him to account.

duxup 1y ago

"Nothing is my fault, I'm responsible for nothing, you should be angry / afraid at all times at other people and that is why you should vote for me." - US Conservative Majority who makes policy ...

TiredOfLife 1y ago

When Democrats hold the majority Democrats can't do anything because Republicans don't let them. When Republicans hold the majority Democrats can't do anything because Republicans don't let them.

myvoiceismypass 1y ago
> When Democrats hold the majority Democrats can't do anything because Republicans don't let them. The Affordable Care Act came out of one of the only recent years they had the House, Senate, and White House.
johnnyanmac 1y ago
The democrats held the majority for a few months over 12 years ago. And that resulted in the biggest Healthcare policy in history. Republicans have held thr majority for 3 years of trumps 5 so far. What does he have to show for it? I'm genuinely asking: what benefit has he provided to the people wit that unilateral power?
- parineum 1y ago
  The majority of Americans think that the border situation/immigration has improved since Trump was elected, more than approve of Trump/ICE. Trump also appointed the judges that got Roe overturned, a huge win for his constituency. Democrats certainly don't approve but Republicans don't approve of the ACA so, if that's the bar, neither did anything of significance.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    >The majority of Americans think that the border situation/immigration has improved since Trump was elected Okay, I ask again. What benefit has he provided for the people? Did the jobs come back? Is it safer to walk on the streets? has land value increased? Are groceries less scarce? Border patrol seems to have long forgotten what the end goal is for the americans, and no one can seem to answer thta question anymore (for what I see are clearly obvious reasons). >Trump also appointed the judges that got Roe overturned Same question. Is illegal abortion improving the lives of everyday citizens. >but Republicans don't approve of the ACA Same question. Where's that money going that benefits the americans? This is the whole issue. We can't point to lives being improved, only fears that were manufactured by the same rich elite being quelled. A society powered by fear isn't a democracy.

josephcsible 1y ago

A majority isn't enough to end the shutdown. It takes 60 Senate votes to pass a budget, and there are only 53 Republicans in the Senate.