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On Government Shutdowns, Let’s Take Our Own Side
The president of the United States is not going to [defund Planned Parenthood, and all we’re going do is shut the government down … The American people are gonna shake their heads and say, “What’s the story with these Republicans?” … There are ways to do it without having to shut the government down, but I’m sympathetic to the fact that we don’t want this organization to get funding, and the money ought to be reprogrammed for family planning in other organizations that don’t support this tactic. But I would not be for shutting the government down …because I don’t think it’s going to work out.
That’s what John Kasich said during last week’s Republican debate and Karl Rove said something similar this morning in The Wall Street Journal. Honest people can disagree on whether a “shutdown” strategy is a good idea or not, but we need to be truthful and accurate about how this works: Republicans can’t shut down the government; Congress can’t shut down the government; Only the president can shut down the government.
Can’t a conservative politician bring himself to say “We don’t want to shut down the government. In fact, we can’t do that. It’s the president that is threatening to shut down the government. We call on President Obama to keep the government open.”
It isn’t like the two sides are playing chicken. Only one side can commit the childish act of shutting down the government. Only one side is the guilty party.
Even worse, Sen. Ted Cruz was on the same stage when Kasich made the above statement and even Cruz couldn’t bring himself to correct the record. Talk about a conservative communication problem.
Whether or not Congress defunds Planned Parenthood in the face of Obama’s threats, the press will be talking about a possible shutdown and, yes, the press is against us. That’s all the more reason we should tell the plain truth. Honest people can debate the strategy, but we can’t have a proper debate if we can’t describe the situation properly.
We need to take our own side in this argument.
Published in Politics
You were the one insinuating there are Tea Party members in Congress, not me.
I’m not insinuating. I’m stating an objective fact, with evidence. You are insinuating that TEA Party affiliated members of congress are either mendacious or have since changed their allegiances. Evidence for your insinuations would be greatly appreciated.
If one stands up for what one deems to be true, even if unpopular, then one stands up for what one deems to be true. At that point, even those who don’t like it are going to hear it. Sometimes a bit of courage is required.
Whoa there! This hill isn’t the sort of place for that. You want that hill over there.
No Jamie, I am not, but don’t let facts or reality hinder your outrageous rhetoric.
Sometimes in political discourse sarcasm and wit are invoked. That those are lost on you is a shame as you have much to offer.
My point about the Tea Party was sarcasm directed at the majority of republicans in Congress which JoE immediately picked up on and responded nicely with some similar OTT wit, always appreciated and respected.
There are only two political parties in Congress R and D, neither of which is a party of smaller gov’t. My attempt at sarcasm lost on you was to highlight the naivety that republicans should in any way be associated with less and/or small government. You are correct the Tea Party is a movement and there are Reps and Senators sympathetic to the local movements, but there is no formal national Tea Party with representation in Congress.
Per your standard mode of operation you elect to find some outrageous corner to further a nonsensical point and occupy it, well done.
My apologies for not having time to upload pictures to explain this to you this morning.
The House passes an appropriations bill that is also passed by the Senate and that the President will sign until he realizes that the bill forbids any funding by the Federal government for Planned Parenthood so the President vetoes the bill.
The House stands by what it has passed.
Who is responsible for shutting down government when existing funding lapses?
And you’re old enough to know that you don’t get everything you want in life. Is the Republican Party as conservative as I’d like? No. Does the Republican Party roll back government as much as I would like? No. Does the Republican Party attempt to reduce the size of government? Since 1980 the answer has been unequivocally yes. Tax reform in the 80s, Welfare Reform in the 90s, the sequester etc.
Have we reached the minarchist state I would like? No. Have we reached the freemarket foreign adventurist police state I assume you would prefer? No (see SARCASM!) That doesn’t mean Republican’s don’t stand for smaller government.
My problem is that we have never lost the election following a “Shutdown” We always gained, not always a lot, and in the face of a lot of screaming about evil Republicans, but we simply did not lose the next elections. So the excuse that we will be blamed is its own strawman. Stand up and point the finger were it belongs, pass a budget, absent one line item, and let the President veto it. Then he owns it, when he shuts the place down. When he veto’s it, pass it again, exactly the same, until he signs it.
Do some homework on federal spending with republicans holding Congress and/or the White House.
The electoral consequences of a “government shutdown” (which fails to stop so many things worth shutting down) are entirely dependent upon perceptions formed in a media war.
It can be an effective strategy for Republicans, but that requires not only smart maneuvering in Congress but also smart maneuvering outside of Congress while communicating with the public. Republicans are generally terrible at public relations, so a shutdown would be like pointing a gun without bullets.
Did Republicans ever knock down the ludicrous suggestion by Democrats that the budgets of police and firefighters, as well as Social Security and Medicare checks, must be the first expenses stopped? These are the politicians who couldn’t push a profitable children’s show (Sesame Street) off taxpayer funding.
Brent is right about hostile news media. That is why Republicans should be more selective about how they communicate with the public. Before he joined Fox News, Glenn Beck had the second highest rated show on CNN. There are sometimes opportunities for honesty even on the liberal networks, but only the best speakers can successfully get their message past hostile hosts. Meanwhile, Republicans continue to under-utilize YouTube, Facebook, and other free web services which allow more control, longer and clearer messages, and are open to viral marketing.
The last shutdown didn’t cost Republicans electorally because whatever swing voters it might have annoyed don’t remember anything that happened more than 6 months before.
Ever since ’96, Republicans have been shooting themselves in the foot by claiming “credit” for shutting down the government, so it has reached the point that every shutdown is automatically blamed on the Republicans. And certain idiot politicians in the party keep doing it.
This is 5th Grade civics, people. Congress has the power of the purse. Congress decides where to spend the money. And Obama has threatened that if he doesn’t get his pet project funded, he (and only he!) is going to throw a temper tantrum and shut down the government.
Every single Republican should be referring to this as the “Presidential Temper Tantrum.” Every day. In every interview. In every answer to every question in the debates. “Presidential Temper Tantrum.” Maybe use a visual aid, like a pacifier. This can be explained to the voters.
Isn’t the issue really more about the fact that everything else is hanging on this one issue? The narrative is, the Republicans hold hostage everything, for their one little pet issue. I think that’s what folks don’t like.
Pass a bill that de-funds planned parenthood, and only de-funds planned parenthood.
In any event, Planned Parenthood isn’t going to get de-funded, and we know that. The deal is symbolic. And I can appreciate that.
Is it defund, or de-fund? The spell checker don’t like either.
Why can’t PP be defunded? It seems like there’d be a pretty good constituency for the proposition that babies shouldn’t be murdered. I’m against murdering babies. Surely that’s not too unpopular a position.
Unfortunately none of that constituency is employed in the mainstream media.
It’s an odd twist, isn’t it. PP doesn’t get much money from Big Daddy, so it’s not a big deal, but what they do get, by gum, if they don’t get it, the womens will be dying in the street. It’s a sideways deal. Sideways, I say.
Good point Spin and why I don’t think this is a hill to die on.
Its the diffused costs/concentrated benefits problem.
Its not much money to Uncle Sam, but its almost 40% of PP budget. Diffused costs/concentrated benefits.
Also the issue of PP funding is much more complex than is usually told by the media. The vast majority of PP funding from the government comes in the form of mediaid payments – none of which “directly go to abortion”. We know this is an accounting gimmick, but its an extremely easy narrative to tell.
I’m sanguine about the shutdown–the evidence re: electoral impact is quite mixed–but not so sanguine about the GOP’s ability to place the blame where it belongs.
BTW, it’s very interesting that the only recent shutdown-free administration was that of Bush 43. Suggests that the GOP better run someone who’ll occasionally wield the veto pen or shutdown threat.
Wow! Who knew that completely reversing media narratives was as simple as saying the opposite of what the media is telling people?
We really need to get over the idea that just because the truth is on our side, people will recognize it. There is no magic formulation of words that wins the media war over a shutdown, just as no footwork adjustments make an uphill charge on an entrenched position a good idea.
You have to take a different approach to such a battle, not simply try again, even harder this time.
They’re afraid to take the blame but they always take it because they are the first to accuse their Republican colleagues of threatening the shut the government down. They should begin with an honest narrative on these matters early and often and start the appropriate legislation sooner, so there is time to override or fail to override a veto. “This President is willing to shut down the entire government in order to continue to fund abortion and the sale of baby parts”, is a better narrative and to close the loop, move the funds to some catholic health clinic that provides women’s screening and counseling.
This President has upended the traditional approach to handling a specific funding issue and the Republicans have aided him in that process. It was difficult to overcome with Harry Reid and a Democrat controlled Senate, but it could be overcome now. All my life I have witnessed Presidents sign bills that failed to include specific funding they favored and they were then expected to go back to the legislators and try to pass a bill for that specific funding. Now is a time to defeat the narrative that Republicans are shutting down the government.
I don’t know that it makes a difference what hill one dies on if the stand MUST be made at some point.
We never expect to win the media. I don’t understand what we are trying harder to accomplish.
If we will never win the media, why not try to win the base?
Frank – if republicans pass appropriations at the levels requested by Obama and he signs them do we expect the media is going to write headlines about how responsible, mature, and patriotic republicans are in their leadership of Congress?
I respect your concerns about the downside of these battles, you are correct – the press will excoriate the republicans.
So what is the upside to not fighting? What benefit do we gain?
A few phases:
‘ In the President’s ( or Mrs. Clinton’s or the Democrat’s) fanatical devotion to killing babies’
‘ the monsters who run Planned Parenthood’
‘ since when is money for these monsters an urgent national priority worth shutting everything else down’
‘Women’s health? Half of the babies killed are women’
‘ this has nothing to do with ‘women’s health’ it has to do with killing babies. ‘
If the Republicans can’t even make a cogent argument against killing babies they are utterly hopeless.
What we are apparently trying to accomplish is playing chicken with the democrats until they cave. Of course, if they ever actually cave to this tactic, we will go back to this well constantly, so they never will.
So then it becomes a battle over who will suffer the electoral wrath of the people over the partial shutdown. The answer to that question is abundantly clear. If a shut down were to actually drag on until close to an election, it would be suicide for the republicans.
Why is it so hard for all Republicans to defend this proposition to the media: “We passed a budget and the president vetoed it. Why don’t you ask him why he didn’t sign it? Why is funding Planned Parenthood more important to him than keeping the government running?”
We will never convince Debbie Wasserman Schultz that the president shut down the government. Probably won’t convince too many MSNBC hosts. But the average person, hearing the same proposition over and over again might finally get it. “We passed a budget and he vetoed it. All he had to do was sign it. But he wouldn’t because he wants to keep funding abortions.”
The second proposition should be: “We would be happy to fund Planned Parenthood if it simply spun off its abortion business to a separate entity, so that we could be certain that federal funds are not funding those abortions.” In fact, if it’s feasible to do so the Republicans should write that “if” statement into the budget legislation. Then when the president vetoes it, the Republicans can argue that “we stand ready to fund women’s health, including Planned Parenthood, if they simply don’t do abortions.”
We have good odds of winning the presidency in 2016, and holding the senate. If we don’t hold the senate, we will definitely win it back in 2018.
For the Planned parenthood example, every republican candidate except Pataki supports defunding it (Kaisich may be lying, but im not psychic). Christie for example defunded Planned Parenthood in his state about 6 years ago, and he is one of the more liberal guys we have up there.
Win the election and we win this fight. Lose the election and victory postponed indefinitely.
What electoral wrath? 1996? 2014?
It is Ok to argue the opinion piece, but the data doesn’t support it.
The only potential electoral wrath I’ve noticed is the passionate support Trump, Carson, and Fiorina are garnering in the early primary at the expense of more traditional candidates who dis the right wing the party that is disposed to supporting the power of the purse.
I agree with you here. But only because you have an axe.