5 ms·

I haven’t been following this mess but if the republicans have the majority in every house, why are they not agent preventing it? And why are they blaming the d

I haven’t been following this mess but if the republicans have the majority in every house, why are they not agent preventing it? And why are they blaming the democrats for it?

thelastgallon 1y ago
The bill needs 60 votes. GOP has 53-47 majority. They need 7 dems to vote.
- NewJazz 1y ago
  So far 3 dems have voted for the GOP bill. Fetterman of PA, one of the NV senators, and Angus King of Maine.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Can we even call Fetterman a dem at this point?
    - NewJazz 1y ago
      Yes. Ask again in 2028 though I have a feeling his affiliation is subject to change.
Jtsummers 1y ago
I said it in another comment and it's in many reports, but per Senate rules they need a 3/5th majority (60 votes) to pass the funding bill. One Republican voted against, two Democrats and one Independent for. That brought it to 55-45. The Republicans absolutely could change the rules, and don't require that same supermajority to do so, so this is squarely on them. The same thing happened in 2018 when the previous shutdown happened, also with Trump in the White House and a Republican majority in both houses. The Senate Republicans lacked a supermajority and did not change the rules, and the government shutdown for 35 days.
- godelski 1y ago
  > The Republicans absolutely could change the rules, and don't require that same supermajority to do so, so this is squarely on them. Fuck that. Seriously. It isn't even a good idea for Republicans to do this. The point of a 3/5th majority is to enforce compromising. That thing that is essential to a democracy. Remember, changing the rules means all future rulers can play by those rules. The extensions of these types of powers is exactly the type of thing that leads to Turnkey Tyranny.
  - School-Cotton 1y ago
    > That thing that is essential to a democracy. The US is the only democracy in the world that has this feature or anything like it.
    - Marsymars 1y ago
      Switzerland has a feature like it, in that a supermajority is required to pass a non-balanced budget. In practice, their budgets are all balanced. See their "debt brake".
      - Jtsummers 1y ago
        The US will never have a balanced budget with the two current political parties trading off. It'd require, now, raising taxes beyond what even the most high-tax friendly Democrat would want, or substantially cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense spending. The Democrats will never reduce the first three enough, and Republicans will never reduce the first two and Defense enough. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... Everything below those four is basically a rounding error, you could cut bits and pieces but nowhere near enough to balance the budget. And you can't cut interest payments without defaulting on the debt itself, which would create so many more problems. We need to raise our revenue by something like 50% or lower our spending by about 33%, or something in between on both.
buckle8017 1y ago
You can't pass a budget without a super majority in the Senate (60/100). Nearly every Republican has voted on a continuing resolution which would just kick the can 30/60/90? days.
- Cody-99 1y ago
  >You can't pass a budget without a super majority in the Senate Yes you can. It is called reconciliation and it was made for passing a budget with a simple majority. Problem is when republicans used it earlier this summer they didn't actually fund the government fully so now they need 60 votes.
  - gruez 1y ago
    >Problem is when republicans used it earlier this summer they didn't actually fund the government fully so now they need 60 votes. How did the OBBBA get passed under reconciliation then? I thought the whole point was that bills could only pass via reconciliation if it didn't change spending/revenues?
    - kemayo 1y ago
      It's the opposite. Reconciliation lets you pass bills that only change spending/revenues, and isn't allowed to change policies which are revenue-neutral. You might be thinking of how it's not allowed to create a deficit after 10 years, but that's traditionally done by just saying "everything here expires after 10 years" and then leaning on a later congress to extend it. (It's a little more complicated, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_... covers it.)
      - gruez 1y ago
        That still doesn't explain how the OBBBA passed but they can't use the same process to pass a debt limit increase. Do republicans want to add more stuff to the bill? Based on the wikipedia article it looks like it should be able to pass a bill that only raises the debt limit through reconciliation?
metaltyphoon 1y ago
Because a 60 majority is needed. They have the majority but not 60 so they have to compromise somewhere to get the necessary votes.
- spwa4 1y ago
  Nope. They can vote with a simple majority to change that rule too (senate process rules only require majority). They could make an exception in this particular case or change the rule entirely. And we'll not even get into that they've built up a bit of a history ignoring all sorts of government rules. They don't care about rules. No, Republicans want a shutdown and want to blame democrats for it. I doubt that is the full extent of their plan, so we'll see soon enough, and there has to be some reason for the whole circus, so I really doubt republican voters are going to like what's coming. Clearly, the play is to set the stage for a big unpopular decision, one big enough their political future depends on blaming it on democrats. Trump has already hinted at things: mass-layoffs in government, and of course the elephant in the room: defunding Obamacare and just letting it fail. That last one would require at minimum 3 months of government shutdown ... but that wouldn't be the first time Trump does that.
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  Both sides have been bypassing those rules for years to suit their whims: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/11/nx-s1-5538448/senate-republicans-nuclear-option-confirmations https://www.npr.org/2025/09/11/nx-s1-5538448/senate-republic...
shawn_w 1y ago
The Senate rules require a 60+ vote majority to pass the funding bill. There aren't enough Republican senators to hit that, so they need a few Democratic votes. Yet they're unwilling to negotiate and work out a measure that Dem congresspeople can live with; it's their way or the high way.
- votepaunchy 1y ago
  Technically it’s 60 votes for cloture, to end debate and allow the vote. The vote is still by majority, and Senators can vote for cloture but against the bill.
  - Tadpole9181 1y ago
    And technically they only need a majority to change that rule. But Republicans are downright giddy about the shutdown.
    - cindyllm 1y ago
      [dead]
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  > they're unwilling to negotiate and work out a measure that Dem congresspeople can live with Isn't this true for both sides?
  - cr125rider 1y ago
    Indeed. This is the “divided we fall” part.
itsanaccount 1y ago
GOP apparently had enough votes to pass a budget by reconciliation. Which means the riders they want to add on, dropping Obamacare funding expansions are at minimum important enough to shut down over. They do not seem to be acting in good faith, not sending people to negotiate any of this. Combined with the leaking presidents comments about being able to force through things under shutdown they wouldn't be able to otherwise, I think a reasonable interpretation is this shutdown is intentional and part of someone's plan. edit: since subtext is dead its called Project 2025 and it's supposed to be a "bloodless coup" of the federal government. And if that isn't obvious by now please wake up.
- mikeyouse 1y ago
  Also the current OMB director along with the President have apparently decided they can just carry out rescissions of any spending they don’t like, even though the spending is congressionally mandated. Republicans in the house don’t care to address the fact they’ve ceded the Purse to the White House so why would Democrats negotiate a spending bill when the president can decide he’s not going to follow-through on D priorities after the bill is approved?
- LadyCailin 1y ago
  Republicans haven’t acted in good faith since Newt Gingrich.
  - jennyholzer 1y ago
    That's giving Ronald Reagan a lot of credit. edit: Forgot about Watergate for a second there.
    - LadyCailin 1y ago
      True! But I think in general, those were the exception, not the rule. Gingrich changed the party as a whole to grab power more than anything else, including respecting democracy or honesty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution
School-Cotton 1y ago
Because the US system requires 60 votes in the senate to pass most bills, not 50. This is the root cause of a huge amount of the dysfunction in the country.
- cm2187 1y ago
  Is it? Requiring consensus to pass laws at the federal level, that are binding on the states, doesn't look like a terrible thing to me.
- HumblyTossed 1y ago
  Isn’t the root cause that we elect babies who can’t negotiate?
  - votepaunchy 1y ago
    Do we want this hostage negotiation?
  - baby_souffle 1y ago
    You could argue that the root cause is that people who feel that babies best represent them are given the privilege of voting.
- Aeolun 1y ago
  Sounds like the system working as designed to me.
- crote 1y ago
  The root cause is first-past-the-post winner-takes-all representation, inevitably leading to a dysfunctional two-party system. Requiring a two-thirds majority for crucial bills is quite doable with proportional representation. It just means having to make slight compromises to end up with something most people will be happy about.

I haven’t been following this mess but if the republicans have the majority in every house, why are they not agent preventing it? And why are they blaming the democrats for it?

thelastgallon 1y ago

The bill needs 60 votes. GOP has 53-47 majority. They need 7 dems to vote.

NewJazz 1y ago
So far 3 dems have voted for the GOP bill. Fetterman of PA, one of the NV senators, and Angus King of Maine.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  Can we even call Fetterman a dem at this point?
  - NewJazz 1y ago
    Yes. Ask again in 2028 though I have a feeling his affiliation is subject to change.

Jtsummers 1y ago

I said it in another comment and it's in many reports, but per Senate rules they need a 3/5th majority (60 votes) to pass the funding bill. One Republican voted against, two Democrats and one Independent for. That brought it to 55-45. The Republicans absolutely could change the rules, and don't require that same supermajority to do so, so this is squarely on them. The same thing happened in 2018 when the previous shutdown happened, also with Trump in the White House and a Republican majority in both houses. The Senate Republicans lacked a supermajority and did not change the rules, and the government shutdown for 35 days.

godelski 1y ago
> The Republicans absolutely could change the rules, and don't require that same supermajority to do so, so this is squarely on them. Fuck that. Seriously. It isn't even a good idea for Republicans to do this. The point of a 3/5th majority is to enforce compromising. That thing that is essential to a democracy. Remember, changing the rules means all future rulers can play by those rules. The extensions of these types of powers is exactly the type of thing that leads to Turnkey Tyranny.
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  > That thing that is essential to a democracy. The US is the only democracy in the world that has this feature or anything like it.
  - Marsymars 1y ago
    Switzerland has a feature like it, in that a supermajority is required to pass a non-balanced budget. In practice, their budgets are all balanced. See their "debt brake".
    - Jtsummers 1y ago
      The US will never have a balanced budget with the two current political parties trading off. It'd require, now, raising taxes beyond what even the most high-tax friendly Democrat would want, or substantially cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense spending. The Democrats will never reduce the first three enough, and Republicans will never reduce the first two and Defense enough. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... Everything below those four is basically a rounding error, you could cut bits and pieces but nowhere near enough to balance the budget. And you can't cut interest payments without defaulting on the debt itself, which would create so many more problems. We need to raise our revenue by something like 50% or lower our spending by about 33%, or something in between on both.

buckle8017 1y ago

You can't pass a budget without a super majority in the Senate (60/100). Nearly every Republican has voted on a continuing resolution which would just kick the can 30/60/90? days.

Cody-99 1y ago
>You can't pass a budget without a super majority in the Senate Yes you can. It is called reconciliation and it was made for passing a budget with a simple majority. Problem is when republicans used it earlier this summer they didn't actually fund the government fully so now they need 60 votes.
- gruez 1y ago
  >Problem is when republicans used it earlier this summer they didn't actually fund the government fully so now they need 60 votes. How did the OBBBA get passed under reconciliation then? I thought the whole point was that bills could only pass via reconciliation if it didn't change spending/revenues?
  - kemayo 1y ago
    It's the opposite. Reconciliation lets you pass bills that only change spending/revenues, and isn't allowed to change policies which are revenue-neutral. You might be thinking of how it's not allowed to create a deficit after 10 years, but that's traditionally done by just saying "everything here expires after 10 years" and then leaning on a later congress to extend it. (It's a little more complicated, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_... covers it.)
    - gruez 1y ago
      That still doesn't explain how the OBBBA passed but they can't use the same process to pass a debt limit increase. Do republicans want to add more stuff to the bill? Based on the wikipedia article it looks like it should be able to pass a bill that only raises the debt limit through reconciliation?

metaltyphoon 1y ago

Because a 60 majority is needed. They have the majority but not 60 so they have to compromise somewhere to get the necessary votes.

spwa4 1y ago
Nope. They can vote with a simple majority to change that rule too (senate process rules only require majority). They could make an exception in this particular case or change the rule entirely. And we'll not even get into that they've built up a bit of a history ignoring all sorts of government rules. They don't care about rules. No, Republicans want a shutdown and want to blame democrats for it. I doubt that is the full extent of their plan, so we'll see soon enough, and there has to be some reason for the whole circus, so I really doubt republican voters are going to like what's coming. Clearly, the play is to set the stage for a big unpopular decision, one big enough their political future depends on blaming it on democrats. Trump has already hinted at things: mass-layoffs in government, and of course the elephant in the room: defunding Obamacare and just letting it fail. That last one would require at minimum 3 months of government shutdown ... but that wouldn't be the first time Trump does that.
ranger_danger 1y ago
Both sides have been bypassing those rules for years to suit their whims: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/11/nx-s1-5538448/senate-republicans-nuclear-option-confirmations https://www.npr.org/2025/09/11/nx-s1-5538448/senate-republic...

shawn_w 1y ago

The Senate rules require a 60+ vote majority to pass the funding bill. There aren't enough Republican senators to hit that, so they need a few Democratic votes. Yet they're unwilling to negotiate and work out a measure that Dem congresspeople can live with; it's their way or the high way.

votepaunchy 1y ago
Technically it’s 60 votes for cloture, to end debate and allow the vote. The vote is still by majority, and Senators can vote for cloture but against the bill.
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  And technically they only need a majority to change that rule. But Republicans are downright giddy about the shutdown.
  - cindyllm 1y ago
    [dead]
ranger_danger 1y ago
> they're unwilling to negotiate and work out a measure that Dem congresspeople can live with Isn't this true for both sides?
- cr125rider 1y ago
  Indeed. This is the “divided we fall” part.

itsanaccount 1y ago

GOP apparently had enough votes to pass a budget by reconciliation. Which means the riders they want to add on, dropping Obamacare funding expansions are at minimum important enough to shut down over. They do not seem to be acting in good faith, not sending people to negotiate any of this. Combined with the leaking presidents comments about being able to force through things under shutdown they wouldn't be able to otherwise, I think a reasonable interpretation is this shutdown is intentional and part of someone's plan. edit: since subtext is dead its called Project 2025 and it's supposed to be a "bloodless coup" of the federal government. And if that isn't obvious by now please wake up.

mikeyouse 1y ago
Also the current OMB director along with the President have apparently decided they can just carry out rescissions of any spending they don’t like, even though the spending is congressionally mandated. Republicans in the house don’t care to address the fact they’ve ceded the Purse to the White House so why would Democrats negotiate a spending bill when the president can decide he’s not going to follow-through on D priorities after the bill is approved?
LadyCailin 1y ago
Republicans haven’t acted in good faith since Newt Gingrich.
- jennyholzer 1y ago
  That's giving Ronald Reagan a lot of credit. edit: Forgot about Watergate for a second there.
  - LadyCailin 1y ago
    True! But I think in general, those were the exception, not the rule. Gingrich changed the party as a whole to grab power more than anything else, including respecting democracy or honesty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution

School-Cotton 1y ago

Because the US system requires 60 votes in the senate to pass most bills, not 50. This is the root cause of a huge amount of the dysfunction in the country.

cm2187 1y ago
Is it? Requiring consensus to pass laws at the federal level, that are binding on the states, doesn't look like a terrible thing to me.
HumblyTossed 1y ago
Isn’t the root cause that we elect babies who can’t negotiate?
- votepaunchy 1y ago
  Do we want this hostage negotiation?
- baby_souffle 1y ago
  You could argue that the root cause is that people who feel that babies best represent them are given the privilege of voting.
Aeolun 1y ago
Sounds like the system working as designed to me.
crote 1y ago
The root cause is first-past-the-post winner-takes-all representation, inevitably leading to a dysfunctional two-party system. Requiring a two-thirds majority for crucial bills is quite doable with proportional representation. It just means having to make slight compromises to end up with something most people will be happy about.