Is the Current Budget Chaos Intentional?

People have no idea what government services will be there from week to week.  Government agencies have no idea how to plan services.  This creeping from stop gap bill to stop gap bill, occasioned by Republican hostage taking, is doing irreparable harm to our nation.   One cannot help but wonder, if the current budget crisis is an intentional part of Republican strategy, and if so, what to they hope to gain by it?

Parents have begun arranging alternative child care for their preschoolers, uncertain of whether their Head Start program will be there when they need it. The Social Security Administration is unable to open new hearing offices to handle a backlog of appeals. The Pentagon has had to delay equipment repairs. There is chaos throughout the federal government, as Robert Pear reported in The Times on Tuesday, because a riven Congress has forced agencies to operate on a week-by-week basis.

Yet, on Tuesday, the House passed another short-term spending bill. This one keeps things going for all of three weeks. The Senate will almost certainly join in shortly to avoid an impending shutdown on Friday, the result of the stopgap bill from two weeks ago.

These slipshod exercises in governance were choreographed by House Republicans, who knew that neither the Senate nor President Obama would ever accept their original proposal to gut nonsecurity discretionary spending with $61 billion in cuts through September, including riders to end financing for Planned Parenthood and the health care law. They had hoped to use the pressure of a potential shutdown to achieve much of their goal, but, so far, all they have accomplished is a cut of about $10 billion, mostly from earmarks or programs that the president himself proposed to cut. (The new bill cuts $6 billion.)

House Republican leaders, who say they do not want a government shutdown, have, so far, held off their more fanatical freshmen, who want to slash everything in sight. But the leadership cannot do so forever, and the evidence of that was clear on Tuesday. More than 50 Republicans refused to go along with the three-week resolution because it did not cut enough. Several specifically complained that it allowed financing for Planned Parenthood and the health care law to continue.

This is not a group that cares much for pragmatic compromise, and the three weeks are just a timeout. Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, a Republican who voted no on the new bill, spoke for many of his colleagues when he said the budget could not be resolved without a willingness to shut down government. “By giving liberals in the Senate another three weeks of negotiations,” he said, “we will only delay a confrontation that must come.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

I can personally attest to the need for more Social Security hearing offices.  I suffered without health care for years waiting for a hearing on my SSDI denial, when my case was an obvious one.

Pence implies that the continuing resolution is a cave-in to Democrats, buy he’s lying.  That’s what Republicans do.  The votes in the house are as follows:

Yes

271

(85 D, 186 R)

No

158

(104 D, 54 R)

Not Voting

3

(3 D, 0 R)

It’s clear to see that more Republicans voted yes than no, while more Democrats voted no than yes.  This is a Republican dog and pony show.

Of course, Republicans like chaos, because they can blame it’s effects on Obama and the Democrats, so that is part of the Republican strategy, but the rest is far more devious.

In the meantime, America opposes a government shutdown.

Nearly six in ten people questioned in the poll say that it would be a bad thing for the government to shut down for a few days because Congress did not pass a new spending bill, with 36 percent saying it would be a good thing for the country. And if a government shutdown lasted a few weeks, that figure would rise to 73 percent.

"But Republicans think a shut down that lasts a few days would be a good thing. And a majority of Tea Party supporters approve of a shutdown even if it lasts several weeks," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "That puts pressure on House Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders to take a step which might hurt their standing with independents as well as some Republicans."

The survey indicates wide partisan differences on the issue, with only 21 percent of Democrats saying a shutdown for a few days would be a good thing. That figure rises to 35 percent for independent voters, 53 percent for Republicans, and 62 percent for Tea Party supporters.

What about a government shutdown for a few weeks?

Nine percent of Democrats, 26 percent of independents, 39 percent of Republicans, and 52 percent of Tea Party supporters say a shutdown for a few weeks would be good for the country… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <CNN>

Now, we have an appearance that mainstream Republicans are the center, between Democrats on the left and Teabaggers on the right. And that deception is key to seeing how Republicans are scheming.  We need to remember, however, that the Tea Party is an astro-turfed wing of the Republican party, who think what their financiers tell them to think.  Those are the same financiers that own mainstream Republicans.  It does not make sense for those financiers to be fighting against themselves.  Therefore, the conflict between Republicans and Teabaggers is a sham, engineered to make it appear that the Republican party are the moderates, and thus win independent votes.  They are not moderates.  Look at any state where the Republican party controls the reins of power and the draconian measures taken against Main Street Americans to provide more tax cuts for the rich makes that crystal clear.  Thus we need to understand that the conflict we see is political theatre, intended to misrepresent the truth to American voters.