The 72-Hour Rule

Will the government shut down Friday night?

The current House requires that a bill be available for review for 72 hours prior to it being voted on. Source. There are some workarounds, but that’s the rule the current chaos caucus put into place.

Let’s count.

The existing CR expires at midnight this Friday, the 20th. By my math, that means the bill to extend the CR needs to be ready by 11:59 pm tomorrow, Tuesday, the 17th. But, um, then the Senate would need to vote, too, and President Biden would need to sign off - but yeah, we could handle a government shutdown for 6 hours on Saturday, the 21st, no damage done.

Still, they’re cutting it pretty close. The soft text was supposed to be out yesterday, but that didn’t happen.

What’s the problem? The farmers, and The Farm Bill.

The farmers need a lot of help because they haven’t overcome the damage of the last set of Orange Menace tariffs from his first fiasco of a term. The terms of the Farm Bill itself are hanging by a thread. And remember, “The Farm Bill” is huge, and covers many things, like funding SNAP.

There are a number of other sticking points related to disaster aid to others in addition to the farmers.

Moscow Mike has no chance of getting anything passed without Democratic votes between now and Friday, and the question is what the Rethuglicans are willing to compromise on. There is a similar problem in the Senate where they’re still negotiating.

Let’s be honest, if the Democrats had been in charge of the House and Senate, we would have had all 12 appropriations bills (and the Farm Bill) completed by 30 September 2024, funding the government through the end of fiscal 2025.

But no, since the lunatics are running the asylum. Assuming they can reach a deal on a CR, they are even having trouble deciding if the new CR should go to 15 January 2025 or pushed to mid-March 2025. Some of them want to only kick the can a few weeks, so they’ll have a “new Congress” but the current President for longer term legislation. Their goal is to be able to concentrate on funding prior to when the confirmation hearings start and suck all the air out of everything. Others want to push it so their fearless leader will be available to sign the new legislation. Then again, there’s a question about whether they’ll go with one bill, or two bills, one on the border and security, and the second on taxation.

You’d think they’d stay in DC and try and hash this all out with the looming deadline, but no - there was the Army-Navy Football game. Both Moscow Mike and John Thune went to the game and sat in the Orange Menace’s box. It appears they aren’t allowed to make decisions without marching orders.

So there you have it. Monday report on the looming shutdown. I always enjoy watching this, and as I’ve said before, I hope they cannot come to any settlement.