Congress is about to adopt a wasteful budget in the interest of political expediency. The “stopgap measure to avert a government shutdown” didn’t pass the DOGE sniff-test. The media is portraying their warning to GOP lawmakers as a targeted attack on Speaker Mike Johnson but that’s not true.
Pure pork budget
It’s a bad budget deal but will probably pass anyway. On Wednesday, DOGE co-chairs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy separately issued what amounts to a joint statement.
They got a copy of the “stopgap measure to avert a government shutdown.” The advisory panel advises “rank-and-file Republicans to kill it.” On X, Musk posted “this bill should not pass.” Responding to comments he added, “Ever seen a bigger piece of pork?”
Vivek Ramaswamy agreed. “It’s full of excessive spending, special interest giveaways & pork barrel politics. If Congress wants to get serious about government efficiency, they should VOTE NO.” House Speaker Mike Johnson is on the hot seat for continuing to back the budget compromise.
He promises “that things will be different after Republicans get the trifecta in Washington, DC.” Right now, the Senate remains in Democrat hands so that’s the deciding factor.
The way Ramaswamy sees it, “congress has known about this deadline since they created it in late September. There’s no reason why this couldn’t have gone through the standard process, instead of being rushed to a vote right before Congressmen want to go home for the holidays. The urgency is 100% manufactured.”
That’s been standard procedure on budget deals for years. Things are about to change drastically but not until next month.
Put in context
The budget compromise deal doesn’t smell as bad when you put it in context Johnson insists. “I was communicating with Elon last night. Elon and Vivek and I are on a text chain together, and I was explaining to them the background.”
After texting back and forth until almost midnight, Ramaswamy tapped out, “look, I get it. We understand you’re in an impossible position. Everybody knows that.” DOGE isn’t blaming him, they’re going on record calling out all the Republicans.
Weighing in at a couple of pounds and 1,547 pages, the continuing resolution packs the budget full “of all sorts of add-ons.”
Things we don’t need like “$100 billion in disaster relief; a one-year extension of the farm bill; potentially up to $2 billion in funding to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland, which collapsed earlier this year after a cargo ship rammed into it; and $10 billion in aid to farmers.”
That leaves Johnson “facing an open revolt from Republicans.” Even before the DOGE co-chairs spoke up, lawmakers “blamed the House speaker for trying to ram through the bill before the 118th Congress concludes and lawmakers head home for the holidays.” Conservatives “have howled over the measure, complaining that they just wanted a clean CR and believe many of the other provisions should be taken up separately.”
Johnson simply reminds them all of the political necessity. Next year will be different but for now we need Democrats. “We got to get this done because here’s the key: By doing this, we are clearing the decks, and we are setting up for Trump to come in roaring back with [the] America First agenda.” We don’t need the budget to be a big distraction.
