Three-Point Shots, Vol. 1, No. 23: National Politics Is Even Messier Than Texas Politics

I constantly lament our state's cruel and incompetent politics. It helps to compare it to the feds every once in a while.

         Welcome to another edition of Three-Point Shots, a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself, and 3) share it with others in the link below. Comments are welcome and encouraged.

Friday, September 29, 2023, 10:00 a.m.

         This is an unusual, federal edition of Three-Point Shots. I do not often write about national affairs, on the theory that the less said about them, the better. Besides, I have no specific expertise about national politics or government that would enrich my thoughts and judgments. But this week the national news dominates the public sphere, and in ways that affect Texas and Texans.

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1.    Welcome to the Shutdown

         In all likelihood, the federal government will shut down this weekend, victim of the rampant dysfunction that grips Washington, Deceit.

         Here’s the deal: the federal budget year ends on Saturday, September 30, and a new one begins at 12:01 a.m. om Sunday, October 1. Congress is supposed to pass a budget (contained in a dozen appropriations bills) for the coming year or, failing that, a “continuing resolution” that continues all government functions at their current levels for some unspecified time.

         The House and the Senate annually are given anywhere from eight months to a whole year to create a budget, but the challenge has proven too great for the modern U.S. Congress. The last time the federal government had a budget in place on the first day of the new fiscal year was 1996. That year, Destiny’s Child had just formed, “The English Patient” won the Best Picture Oscar, and the Dallas Cowboys won their last Super Bowl.

         In fairness, a $6.4 trillion budget does not just write itself, but the budgeting process is also not some esoteric alchemy unknown to ordinary mortals. It operates on fundamental principles that are accessible even to, yes, congresscritters:  

         Budgeting, and getting it done on time, is not that hard. Texas does it, and for two years at a pop at that. Cities do it. Counties do it. Even hospital and healthcare districts do it. But the fiscal discipline that permits legislators, city and county officials, and hospital district managers to pass budgets and keep operations running year after year eludes their federal counterparts.

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         So, what happens next? Federal employees – 120,000 civilian and 114,000 military of them in Texas – will be hit first, losing their paychecks. (If they are “essential,” they will be reimbursed when the government machine starts up again. As for the non-essential … tough luck.) Funding for the Border Patrol, the TSA and other homeland security agencies will lapse. FEMA operations and payments in disaster areas will cease. National parks will close.

         My take: Will we survive the Great Government Shutdown of 2023? Assuming the dysfunctional House cam come to its senses and quickly get 218 votes for some sort of deal, sure. Some people – the little people, of course – will fall through the cracks, miss their tuition, mortgage or car payments, and end up devastated by the gameplaying in Washington.

         Amongst the casualties may be Speaker Kevin McCarthy himself. Anything he does to act like a grown-up will probably precipitate an effort to remove him as Speaker.

         More importantly, nothing will happen to keep a similar shutdown from occurring in three, six or twelve months. It serves all the power centers in Washington – the legislators, the White House, the media – to create and magnify this drama. And We the People are expected to put up with it.  

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2.    “Second Verse, Same as the First”

         (Bonus points to anyone who can source the quote above in the comments.)

         I confess, Esteemed Readers, that I did not watch all the second Republican debate, brought to us live from the Reagan Library in California by our friends as Fox Business. For one thing, I did not have my friend and trusted political prognosticator Gerald Daugherty to watch it with, as I did last time.

         For another, the debate was handicapped by being completely inconsequential. Not only was Donald Trump not physically present, but it was if he did not exist. None of the also-rans had any appetite for criticizing He Who Must Not Be Named,^[i] which they should do if they want to, you know, win. The moderators were even worse, not asking a single question about the quadruple-indicted former president who had that day been declared a fraud and a con man by a New York court (see below), or what it says about the GOP that its members seem prepared to nominate him again for the highest office in the land.

         The second debate was a rehash of the first one, but without the dignifying presence of former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who did not make the cut. It featured what we have come to expect from a somber, Fox-hosted debate: ducking the questions asked, ignoring the moderators and the time limits, interrupting and shouting at each other. Take a gander:

         The high point of the inanity was an exchange between South Carolinians Nikki Haley and Tim Scott over, of all things, drapery. Scott, who, I remind you, is a sitting US Senator, accused Haley of having $50,000 worth of drapery installed in her official residence when she was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Haley clarified that the curtains had been installed at the end of the Obama Administration, to which Scott retorted – I am not making this up – “Did you send them back?”

         On such silliness do great empires crumble. Their back-and-forth reminded me of another historic dispute over the scenery:

         My take: The first debate did not change the trajectory of the primary race, which Trump is winning by a landslide. Nor will this one. Ron DeSantis again veered between lifeless and creepy, Ramaswamy tried and failed to be Mr. Nice Guy, and Nikki Haley again proved to have more balls than any of her compatriots. At one point, Haley told Ramaswamy, “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber,” a sentiment most Americans shared about the whole debate.

3.    Donald Trump is having a bad week.

         Donald Trump spent Wednesday night in Michigan at a rally for unionized auto workers who turned out not to be unionized or even auto workers. One might think this was just another Trumpian grift, but perhaps he had more pressing problems on his mind.  

         The judge in the financial fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James granted summary judgment in her case against Trump and all his business entities, finding they’d engaged in persistent patterns of fraud and deceit over the years and ordering the cancellation of their business certificates and dissolution of their businesses.

         My take: Basically, this judgment on his liability (the trial for damages will continue next week) says that Trump is a fraud and a con man and has been so for years, if not decades. Trump built his brand on his prowess as a businessman; will this undoing change how his followers see him? Probably not, since the right-wing media universe has managed to cast The Donald as the victim of a heinous conspiracy on the part of the New York OAG. It may have the effect, though, of making him a poor man, which his cult may eventually find unappetizing.

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         Something for the weekend:

         … Texas Monthly’s astute Alex Samuels demolishes Ken Paxton’s lies, exaggerations, and conspiracies in her takedown of his interview with Tucker Carlson last week. The bad news: the people who listen to Tucker probably will believe everything Paxton said, for example, that Karl Rove is an “activist liberal working effectively for the Biden administration.”

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^[i]        In fairness, DeSantis and Christie each threw a half-hearted jab at Trump that did not land.