Quick Take: The Shutdown Writing's on the Wall

There's a reason these things don't go much past 30 days

1917 - the year cloture was born.

We’re on Day 27 of the current shutdown. The longest ever was 34 days, a shut down over Border Wall funding in 2018-19. Trump ultimately caved on that one. But why?

Economic game theory predicts in a stalemate, or standoff, whoever demands a deviation from the status quo will be perceived “the spoiler” - or the one lacking a moral justification. The mainstream media can lie all they want - and they do - but on the issue of this shutdown, they're clearly following game theory praxis. The Dems are demanding something “not in the deal” and are therefore the spoilers. They can ask Republicans all day long “why not negotiate?” but the simple fact is Republicans passed the same “clean Continuing Resolution bill” that Dems have passed every other time previously (I think 13 is the count frequently cited, most recently, March 15th of this year). So the Dems are the spoilers on this one - they have the losing hand.

So why are they spoiling this time? The answer is, the Dems are in a terrible, rotten, no-good place politically. Their base is unhinged and demanding they fight - even if it’s for (relatively) unsympathetic free health care for illegal aliens. So they’re stuck.

On the Republican side, nobody really wants to vote for Continuing Resolutions - they ran on a return to “Normal Budgeting” after all. But they’re stuck too. The current CR is only supposed to kick the can down the road until the Normal appropriations are ready for floor vote - which is supposed to be mid-November. So the “current” CR is for funding the government for six weeks, at which point the Normal budget (the 12 appropriation bills) are ready for their floor votes. Or something like that.

What stymies the process is the Senate’s cloture rule - it takes 60 votes to discharge a bill from debate and move it to the floor for a full vote. Republicans need at least five more Democrats to move for that to happen (three moderates/independents already have).

What could possibly end this stalemate? Well, likely, the same thing that ended it the last time - the suspension of WIC and SNAP benefits. These two programs provide “food security” for approximately 47 million Americans. We can debate the fraud and abuse in those systems, but it’s inarguable that tens of millions do legitimately rely on those programs for food. It’s a very tangible political threat when America’s poorest get gut-punched for politics. And you can bet the mainstream media already have their poster-children picked out.

So will the Democrats cave, given it would be the height of hypocrisy for them to favor unaffordable health care benefits for non-citizens, versus food security for tens of millions of actual citizens? Or will this boomerang back on the Republicans?

Either way, I don’t see the shutdown continuing (much) past the point of showcased starving people on the news. Either enough moderate Dems and those retiring anyway (Gary Peters, Tina Smith and Jeanne Shaheen) could cross over…OR…

Or, Republicans invoke the “nuclear option”. Actually, it would be more like a low-grade atomic dirty-bomb option. They could simply pass a very narrow rule in the Senate that invokes cloture when a shutdown exceeds 30 days. The Senate is loathe to suspend the filibuster because this is the only weapon the minority party has. And both sides have lived to regret surrendering that weapon when they’re, inevitably, back in the minority. But this would give the Republicans a way out of the shutdown while saving the Dems “face” with their base. And the starving kids get to eat.

Either way, it ends in the next week. Only to have a new drama start again two weeks after that!