Fiscal Wishes Meet Shutdown Realities

A government shutdown won’t actually improve America’s fiscal trajectory.

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Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters as he walks back to his office after opening the House floor in the Capitol on September 26, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

One of the unexpected joys of parenthood is reencountering Mother Goose. The charming old poems collected as fare for very young children are full of frank, often quite bracing, folk wisdom. One of my favorites is this classic warning:

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

If turnips were watches, I’d wear one by my side.

If “ifs” and “ands” were pots and pans,

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  1. Avatar photo
    Citizen60

    Dandy Don Meredith, of Monday night football fame, said: “If “ifs and buts” were candy and nuts, what a wonderful world it would be.”

    Grandparents used the “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

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  2. Bigdonmck

    Never met a government shutdown where the Republicans have not been blamed. An observation, that's all.

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      Citizen60

      Like the Republican Congressman(MikeSimpson, R, Idaho) who stated last week: “Name one time we shut down the government, and haven’t gotten the blame.”

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    This comment has been deleted

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      Rajeev

      When they bowed to Trump in 2019 after the senate voted 92-8 or something to avoid a shutdown then refused to override a veto at least they could’ve incrementally gained something small to get out of a corner and didn’t even do that just surrendered. This time they have less leverage other than nobody really cares this time of year.

      But they have nothing in the senate the Republican senate members want little to do with this.

      That said trump wins with general chaos for next 13 months. People don’t follow the news enough to know. The more chaos the more people will be willing to vote for trump even given the fact he is indirectly or directly responsible for so much of it

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      1. Hikingguy

        It's a familiar fascist playbook. Trump is stupid. Steve Bannon is not.

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  4. Avatar photo
    DougAz

    The House Republican Clowns and the UAW are both forcing

    Strikes!
    Workers stop working!

    Except of course, the UAW has a century of beneficial co-existance with their partners, GM, Ford and Chrysler.

    The House Conservative Terrorists are just naive, self-indulgent narcissistic child clowns who have no idea how to manage, negotiate and govern

    The Republican party is simply a danger to America until MAGA is vaccinated with anti-Trump monoclonal antibodies!

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  5. Mirabelle

    Republican threats of shutdowns shows how unserious they are. And if they are not unserious, they are incompetent. They give no thought to the consequences of their stupid political theater, the people involved or the result of getting the country's credit rating downgraded.

    In the end, it just gets tiring repeating various ways to say Republicans are bad people.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Matmos

      Many Republicans do not support the shutdown. It’s a minority that is calling the shots.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Simon J. Dodd

    I don't remember Mother Goose, but I do remember Valkyrie, in which an exasperated General Olbricht scolds that "the point of replacing Hitler is to negotiate the truce with the Allies . . . [who], I suspect, would be more amenable to a truce *if we offer it to them before they get to f___ing Berlin*!" I might be more amenable to what "many House Republicans observe, correctly," and what they "feel, correctly," *if they had not made themselves complicit in the f___ing problem*. I will not be lectured about fiscal responsibility by the very same people who passed money like water when their tribe held the White House. It's empty partisan rhetoric. Unless or until they say these things to restrain a President of their own tribe, don't tell me what they say (still less what they pretend to "feel") as if it can for one instant be taken seriously.

    Government shutdown or no, this game will continue as long as the Matt Gaetzes of the world have power, and the only reason that they have power is because all those other Republicans—accounted "the sane ones" by the stockholm-syndrome-suffering "normal" Republicans who still, even now, think that they'll somehow wrest back control "after the fever breaks"— are content to let him stand on their shoulders. That is to say: Even if it is true, as Michael Warren and Liam Donovan say on the most recent Dispatch podcast, that this issue's forced by the five craziest, trumpiest, least tractable members of the House GOP, the problem is not the five crazies, it's the 222-5=217 whose complicity is a sine qua non to the five's power to force the issue, and the millions of people who continue to vote for those 217 even though they profess to spurn and despise the five.

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  7. R. James

    The House Republican Debt Ceiling strategy was successful because they passed legislation and could point to something to say, 'we did our job, this is what we want, Biden and the Senate only need to approve this bill to avoid the crisis'. They did not pass anything to avoid the shutdown.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Citizen60

      The Debt Ceiling bill was agreed upon by Biden and McCarthy, and passed in the House with Democratic votes.

      Biden has negotiated with McCarthy on government spending, and McCarthy has had every bill he put on the floor rejected by his own party.

      Can’t pin this on the Dems

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  8. Avatar photo
    Mattjabour

    I'm seeing more and more blind optimism in this conservative newsletter, and I'm not a fan. Y'all are the ones who used to tell us Democrats to stop dreaming and face reality, so I don't feel bad returning the favor.

    House Republicans do not give a damn about the national debt. Matt Gaetz is the instigator on this particular occasion, and I find it difficult to believe he's acting on anything other than petty spite. Going back in time, during the first half of the Trump administration, Republicans controlled all three branches of government and all of the purse strings, and what did they do? Pass a tax cut for the upper middle class, of course!

    One party only "cares" about the national debt when the other party is holding the credit card. The fact that government spending is indeed out of control is entirely irrelevant, because that fact never drives anyone with the actual power to change it. It's just politically expedient to claim to be the party that wants to cut spending at precisely the moment they have no power to do so. I assume every member of the Dispatch staff is old enough to have seen this cycle play out enough times to know better, and I'm disappointed that high-minded altruism keeps getting ascribed as the motivation of men and women who couldn't run a lemonade stand without going four figures into the red.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bel

      If House Republicans actually gave a damn they would have a bill to deal with non-discretionary spending. Anything short of that is theatrics.

      It's kind of like repealing Obamacare. Republicans enjoyed saying it but never coalesced around a plan, because doing so is difficult work that will inevitably upset one constituency or another.

      The only thing they are good at is keeping their base angry, as a distraction from the pain that would be involved in trying to make government more efficient.

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  9. Chris Granner

    OK, let’s talk realistic policy and genuine deficit reduction.

    Let’s pair a 5% across-the-board budget cut to discretionary spending, a 1-year raise to the SSA full-retirement age, and a -1% COLA reduction to SS benefits, with an end to all exceptions to a progressive income tax, including cap gains, dividends, rents, royalties AND inheritance (by ending the step-up-at-death “royalty maintenance act”). We could split the revenue windfall between exempting the first few thousand in income from FICA taxes, and actually paying down the federal debt.

    Who’s with me?

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bel

      Given that I had to draw on our HELOC this year to pay a $7K cap gains related underpayment of taxes, I'm not with you. The withdraw was for college tuition, which we aren't eligible to write off. It's like we are being punished for investing $ for college.

      I like cogitatio's counter offer, although I'm not crazy about getting rid of the SS cap. Anyone subject to the cap is already paying more into SS then they will get out.

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      1. Chris Granner

        There's no question: as stated, this would be a HUGE tax hike, but it would fall most heavily, by FAR, on the 0.01%.

        you could propose a revenue neutral version which could achieve neutrality by lowering marginal rates by equal percentages across the board (a "flat rate reduction"), which would leave you with a big tax cut for the working poor and the lower-middle-class, a no-change-to-small-increase for the middle-and upper-middle classes, and a bigger increase depending on how much of your income came from cap gains (which is a pretty good stand-in proxy for a trip from the 10% to the 0.01% of wealthy in this country).

        That proposal would be easier to sell, but it wouldn't do as much deficit reduction, which was what we're supposed to be talking about.

        But THIS conversation here, that WE'RE having, is WAY more interesting than whatever those clowns in the House are talking about.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Cogitatio

      Hmm, how about a counter offer:

      No across the board cuts to discretionary, but reduce increases to no more than two percent of spending per annum, with Congress able to shift funds from one program to another as required. Emergency spending (military, disaster relief, etc.) must be paid for by cuts in another program or a reduction to one percent spending per annum automatically occurs.

      Increase the SSA full-retirement age to 69 years (two year increase). Increase the minimum age to 65 years of age. I am good with the 1% reduction in COLA increases.

      Remove the cap on SS taxes.

      Remove all individual exemptions on taxes and significantly increase the standard deduction. Will require some sort of special category for small businesses that currently file as individuals, but will significantly reduce all the crazy tax law games for individuals. This includes mortgage/interest deductions and state taxes.

      There needs to be a revision to the corporate tax structure as well, with a focus on simplification.

      Note: May have to fire all of Congress and the President and start from scratch. :-)

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      1. Chris Granner

        So...no end to the carve-out for cap-gains? I believe that one change is the one change we have to do to get spending under control; I see no other realistic way to ever run a responsible, sustainable federal revenue stream.

        I could live with your increase cap, and (more reluctantly) with your sharper increase in the retirement age; CERTAINLY, down for removing the cap on SS taxes.

        But JUST those things, are a regressive re-balancing of the balance sheet.

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    3. Pbeaupre3141

      Not the Freedom Caucus. That's the problem.

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      1. Chris Granner

        My comment was certainly not addressed to the Freedom Caucus. "Who's with me?" was not a rhetorical flourish. Would seriously love to poll this question.

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        1. Pbeaupre3141

          No, I get it. You should advocate for the policy you believe and I commend you for offering a constructive suggestion.

          My point is that spending/budget/tax/deficit is not what this debate is about.

          Any proposal that doesn't offer Matt Gaetz an opportunity to maintain an image of fighting and getting on television won't meet his core #1-10 priorities.

          We should all recognize that regardless of our opinions on the deficit, the debate going on in Washington is about DINO -- deficit in name only. It's a mistake to think that Gaetz et al give a single whit about reducing the deficit. It's just a punchline that allows them to capture certain people's attention.

          But, to be clear, I am not accusing you of that. But I might as well post Yankees scores in this comments section -- they would be equally unrelated to the core debate in Washington

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        2. Drsterrett

          Double taxation sign me up Chris!!

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          1. Chris Granner

            How 'bout we throw in repealing the corporate income tax?

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  10. Nemmerle924

    This argument is analogous to "We shouldnt start building the bridge over the chasm because the first struts wont bridge the entire gap."

    Out of control spending is a massive problem, and of COURSE wont be solved by a shutdown. But to curve the arc of that spending, you have to start somewhere. Getting the issue into the public debate and not treating it like we are numb to it is a necessary first step. How ELSE are we going to get the general public to wake up to this?

    (for the record, I doubt the public will respond to this either. But at least there's some discussion of the fiscal path in the news as a result of the shutdown theater)

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    1. Avatar photo
      Citizen60

      Out of control spending is the problem—for every dollar the Senate Republicans seeks in military funds, the Dems seek a dollar-for-dollar match in domestic programs.

      And Republicans cut taxes every time they can.

      Solution is obvious. Match the military budget to domestic spending, and increase taxes to George HW Bush rates (treat all income the same)

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      Mark B

      I think the problem we have here is that the shutdowns have increasingly communicated the opposite of seriousness. As the article points out the people guiding us over this cliff don’t have a plan for a bridge they want to build. I get the impression from other bits of coverage I’ve seen that they are opposed to building the bridge because if they won then they wouldn’t be able to show their constituents that they are “fighting”tm.

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