White House Aides Now Fear Government Shutdown

[DonViejo]

March 26, 2017 By Taegan Goddard

Mike Allen: “Amid high-stakes postmortems that include conversations with President Trump about White House staffing and operations, aides are rewriting their plans for the next legislative fight — with a weakened president and speaker, emboldened House hardliners, and a party at war with itself.”

“Forget pie in the sky like tax reform or a massive infrastructure package. Now aides fear a government shutdown when the current continuing resolution runs out at the end of April.”

Said one White House official: “We underestimated the vitriol in the Republican conference. The animosity between the hardline House Freedom Caucus and leadership is such that it’s hard to see how the coalition comes together. Each time there was an accommodation, there was a new demand.”

Playbook: “The government is slated to shut down at the end of April. The House — where funding the government will be most difficult — is only in session for 12 more days between now and then. (The House is out from April 7 through April 25.)”

###

https://politicalwire.com/2017/03/26/white-house-aides-now-fear-government-shutdown/

[elleng]

1. the current continuing resolution runs out at the end of April.

White House official: “We underestimated the vitriol in the Republican conference.'

[Volaris]

2. This is Bannons wet dream.

And then when he wakes up, the reality of 'nobody got their SocSec payment processed this month' will sink in and he will realize he pissed his own bed.

Under Obama, the House always caved after about 2 weeks (meaning they played at this, but never meant it).

Under Trump there might not be any pressure to do anything at all, and God help them if they misjudge something like this. Trump will blame the House GOP, the Dems will rightly blame all of them, and the Republican Senate majority will blame Trump, and the base will call them ALL RINOS, because to them, Trump should just be able to not pay whatever bills he wants, because they're just like him.

Truly, this can be the rope with which they hang themselves re: public opinion. All we have to do is watch them hang there and kick when this little attempt at autoerotic asypxiation ends...well, exactly as we know it's going to. NO Democratic president or Majorities to blame THIS time...lol if they thought the Healthcare bill was a failure, this will be EPIC for the Ages.

[Jonny Appleseed]

8. Trump will have more time to play golf won't he?

[WePurrsevere]

9. It definitely would be Bannon's wet dream but...

The general consensus seems to be that it would take a while for already existing Soc Sec payments to stop. Here's a fairly recent article explaining why if you're interested:
http://www.disabilityexpertsfl.com/blog/will-my-social-security-benefits-continue-if-the-government-shuts-down
Also here's the SSAs contingency plan from the 2015 potential shut down. I'm sure they still have one. (pdf download):
https://www.ssa.gov/agency/shutdown/materials/2015-contingency-plan.pdf

There are older articles too most refer to when gov shut down totally before in the mid 90s. As someone disabled by MS, I can personally attest to still getting SSDI benefits for those relatively short shut downs but if I remember correctly those who were not yet in the system had to wait.

The bigger problem lies in a long term shut down. That would harm so much more than Soc Sec and although Bannon would love the type of chaos a long term shut down would cause I suspect that even most Republican politicians don't since they still have to answer to their electorate.

[C_U_L8R]

3. They are in charge of everything

... and still they're gonna shut it down.
What sort of special incompetence does that take ?????
Holy fuck.

[mwooldri]

7. Depends on what kind of budget is up for vote.

If it is the proposed WH budget, no Democrat is going to vote for that. The budget proposed will split the various Republican factions. Moderates will vote no because it goes too far. The Tea Party (err... "Freedom caucus&quot side will say it doesn't go far enough. They will pass an emergency 3 month bill extending the last budget.

Obama wins again!

[bitterross]

4. Time for hot buttered popcorn!

This will be fun to watch. Not too much fun to experience though.

[Foamfollower]

5. And with a single act of STUPIDITY, the Republicans are poised to crash the entire global economy.

God help us all everywhere on the planet, because the debt limit is upon us at the same time and extraordinary measures have already been begun by the treasury!

IF we default, the entire global economy crashes and money will become meaningless.

[Blue_true]

10. I doubt Trump people at the Treasury are planning for anything.

Maybe Mnuchin is setting up to short the market to further enriched himself, but I doubt he is spending much time on how to protect the average American.

[2naSalit]

6. I think this past week

is a preview of what the next few months have in store. After that, I hope we will have ousted the lot of them, with pitchforks if necessary.