The House has passed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through September.
Why bother?
Since the main project of the Trump 2.0 administration is to disassemble the federal government, why bother to allocate money to it?
And since the Trump 2.0 administration is claiming in court that it can spend the money it has however it wants regardless of how Congress directed that it be spent, why is Congress bothering to give spending directives?
There’s actually a very simple reason.
Because they know it’s illegal.
And it would be even more illegal to keep at it during a “shutdown”.
So, the House has offered to make it only-kinda-illegal by not triggering the automatic “oh noes; no more money” shutdown that will happen on Friday night and by offering this additional money with only vague directives about how it must be spent.
That way, whatever is left of the government can continue to pay its bills and have legal cover for choosing which bills it actually wants to pay.
This is pretty much the last chance to formally stop any of this.
If the Senate passes this continuing resolution, it will give enough leeway to sympathetic courts to allow full reign to a group that:
- received a minority of votes for President
- received a minority of votes for Representatives
- received a minority of votes for Senators
(Seriously, it’s minority all across the board with them.)
This must not pass the Senate.
It’s quite possible that the damage they’ve done already can’t be fixed, but there will definitely be no recovery from the damage they can do with a blank check from Congress.
We could, eventually, over generations, build new institutions but the data and expertise the current institutions hold now would just be gone.
It would be better for the U.S. government to shut down for a while now than to be shut down forever.
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