Tag: Government Shutdown

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 28SEP2025 – Dem’s Scylla and Charybdis

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Milo’s analogy reminds me of a situation I saw. There was a pear tree on land near my home that was unclear if it was on my property or the neighbors. It was in a bad way as where it had been planted was rocky quick draining soil so it was often starved for moisture. After a couple dry summers and cold snowless winters it was on its last legs. I got out my pruning saw and was ready to do some major clean up removing some of the branches which were clearly damaged or diseased. The neighbor came out and said it was his tree and I was not to touch it. In the interest of neighborhood peace I didn’t even argue. withing 2 years the pear tree was dead and he had to have someone come in and remove it.

Like that tree the US has some damaged sections. Radical pruning is called for to solve (or at least mitigate issues) now. But the Democrats see this as our tree don’t you touch it! In my case the tree had been planted by the previous owners so I had little interest and just walked away. We can’t do that we depend on this tree and honestly, it feels like the USA is the last flowering tree of the Scottish Enlightenment. The UK, Australia and Canada (and little New Zealand) have all fallen to the modernist tilt.

I think Trump has carefully wedged the Democrat leadership between Scylla and Charybdis and is enjoying watching them squirm. Because the language the Trump Administration proposes is such that the removed positions are not layoffs or furloughs the positions cease to exist. Because of the language (unfunded positions) the removals essentially go around the civil service protections. In general, this hurts primarily Blue voters in areas so blue that they are bound both by representation and electoral votes to the Democrat party. Schumer can’t let this happen as hordes of his supporters will be unemployed. But neither can he give in as other parts of his base would be enraged. I suspect he chooses the former, hoping that the enraged unemployed Democrats vent their anger at the Administration. The one downside of this for the Republican party is this probably wipes out any Chance Winsome-Sears had of winning the Virginia Gubernatorial election if this falls out like I suspect. That’s a shame. Ms. Winsome-Sears is an impressive lady but not being native born she is not eligible for Vice president or president. A ticket with Vance/Winsome-Sears in 2028 would have made the Democrats heads explode.

Let the Daylight In

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Supposedly October 1st is the deadline for the latest government shutdown scare.  The Democrats have said that unless Biden’s Obamacare boondoggles are extended and PBS gets funded, they won’t vote for an extension of the present budget.

Now the talking heads on the Left are split fifty/fifty on whether this is a good idea or a terrible one.  The conundrum is that if they allow the government to shut down, they will take a good chunk of the blame in the eyes of the public.  In addition, Trump has indicated that unlike in shutdowns past, he doesn’t intend to furlough federal employees.  He’s going to fire huge numbers in order to reduce the size of the federal government.  And the great majority of these employees are Democrats.  So, the feeling on the Left is that whatever blame Trump gets will not make up for the blame the Democrats themselves will get for abandoning their most loyal voters (federal bureaucrats) to the fate of unemployment and eventual starvation.  After all these aren’t rocket scientists.  Most of these people aren’t qualified to cross the street even with a traffic light.  If the government lets them go, it’s not even a sure thing they’ll make it home successfully.  Like lemmings they may all follow some confused creature into the Potomac where we can only assume they’ll all be washed out to sea.

So, I guess we have to see what Trump plans to do.  If he does plan to eliminate some enormous number of federal workers maybe this is a watershed moment for the country.  And who knows, maybe he also will ask the senate to take the nuclear option and eliminate the filibuster all together.  And if they do eliminate it, maybe they’ll go the whole way and then just enact a real honest-to-goodness budget like they used to before Obama gave up on federal budgets.

So, there is the shiny happy version of things.  What’s the other choice?  Well, firing millions of people, even useless stupid people will have economic consequences.  Bureaucrats have dependents.  Mostly they’re cats but there must be some children too.  And if all of a sudden there are millions of kids falling into poverty, this will have some consequences.  If they’re dire enough maybe it will anger Americans who hate to see poor people suffering.  Maybe this will lead to the Republicans getting pounded in the 2026 midterms.  And that would lead to divided government for the last two years of Trump’s term.

Well, you know, I think my gut tells me that the correct strategy is for Trump to “go big.”  Emptying out Washington DC is a once in a century situation.  Doing it now hurts the Left almost exclusively.  If all these people find themselves unemployed it will have a huge impact on elections.  These are the Democrats’ most loyal voters.  But if they lose those government jobs something tells me they’ll be too busy struggling to survive to bother voting at all.  In fact, firing huge numbers of bureaucrats will change the whole ecosystem around Washington.  Who knows, it might turn Virginia red again when all the carpetbaggers have to go home to mom and dad’s basement in California, Massachusetts and New York.

So go ahead DJT, start up that chainsaw.  Let the daylight in.

Government Shutdown Chicken

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Well, here we are.  Christmas is a fond memory and the do-nothing Republican led House is about to become the cannot-do-anything Democrat led House.  President Trump is bringing home the troops from the Middle East and will let the partial government shutdown send the bureaucrats home without their big fat paychecks.

I’ll have to read up on the actual constraints of shutting down the government.  I’m guessing the military will have sufficient funds to fuel jets and feed troops.  I don’t know what happens to Social Security checks and Medicare bills.  Both sides are making noises about who will pay the price for turning out the lights in D.C. and filling in the Grand Canyon during the hiatus.  Several people on our side of the divide have opined that since most of the civil service are Democrat supporters this will hurt them more than us and will bring them to the bargaining table first.  Sounds plausible.

I’m guessing that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi will be the brokers on their side.  And I’m wondering if the “Dreamers” will be the carrot that will be waived to get the wall built.  I’m hoping that they won’t be given any amnesty.  It’s just too slippery a slope.  Before you know it everyone in the Third World will be identified as a Dreamer.

More importantly, what will be the path forward to evicting the tens of millions of squatters who currently inhabit the country?  At some point it has to be started if the wall is to have any meaning.  Enforcing the current immigration laws has to be part of any strategy to secure the border and return authority over the country to the legal residents.  And since it is already within existing legislation to do it, no battles in Congress are necessary.  All that is needed is the will and control over the bureaucracy and law enforcement agents whose job it is to carry out these existing policies.

I say this as if it were easy.  It’s not.  Currently the Justice Department isn’t even under the control of the President.  He must first get his Attorney General appointed and the mutinous crew currently running the various agencies fired and out of the buildings.  Then he has to find capable honest people to take their places and doing the job.  I don’t envy him the task.  It’s enormous.

It should be a very interesting January.  A few weeks without their paychecks should focus the minds of a lot of bureaucrats and hopefully make them more receptive to cutting a deal over immigration.  This will also be a real test of President Trump.  Battling Congress and dealing with his executive branch mutiny, not to mention the Mueller comedy is a titanic assignment.  I think he is up to the challenge and I wish him all the luck and success he can get.  Maybe it’s just the lingering Christmas food glow but somehow, I’m feeling optimistic.  We’ll probably know by Valentine’s Day who wins the game of chicken.