In the near term, lawmakers’ actions bode well for ensuring that agencies and government services stay open and functional, and that government staff don’t experience disruptions to their workflow or paychecks. Much like it has done in the past, however, Congress’ decision to embrace a CR will allow it to simply procrastinate on the challenges of negotiating final spending bills — and merely postpone the possibility of a shutdown until 2024.
They are just playing kick-the-can. I’m guessing until the next election, they’ll just keep passing short-term spending stop-gap bills.
Make no mistake: the GOP political strategy involves shutting the government down and shifting public opinion so that Biden eats the blame for it. They lost the messaging fight this time, so they kicked it down the road so they can try again next year. They want “Biden Shutdown” in the news at election time, but they’ll settle for increasing the deficit by cutting programs designed to help the old, poor, and vulnerable while defunding the profitable IRS so they and their rich donors can continue to commit tax fraud and evasion. If they play their cards right, they can have both, because it doesn’t matter anymore what’s actually going on in DC. It only matters what the propaganda outfits can enrage people about.
