Sept 30 is the Day

Kate Riga and Josh Marshall had a good podcast this week. They devoted a fair amount of time to discussing the next budget showdown, and other Republican monkey business. Key points:

• The Trump administration is going to try for “pocket recission” which basically stops the disbursement of billions of dollars appropriated by Congress. Even the GAO says it’s illegal.

• Republicans want a one year Continuing Resolution (CR) so they won’t have to worry about a shutdown for a while.

• September 30 is the probable date when this will happen.

Riga and Marshall had some thoughts on what Democrats could ask for:

• Re-instatement of Obamacare subsidies (which would be a win for Republicans because this is a pain point that will happen before midterms).

• National Guard out of LA, DC, and other places.

• A shorter CR, say a couple of months, so if Trump reneges on promises, Democrats would have another opportunity to shut the government down.

Given the absolutely weak and feckless response to the last opportunity to shut the government down, I have no expectation that Schumer and Jeffries will do any of these things. They’re more interested in Andrew Cuomo becoming Mayor of New York City than they are in fighting. It’s also painfully obvious that their strategy is to shut up and wait for the midterms, which they expect to win without any effort since they expect everyone to realize that Trump sucks.

That said, this would be a good time to start beating the drum with elected Dems, calling them to ask if they’re going to fight this time, or just roll over again.