Please someone explain how there could be a gov shutdown when republicans control the senate and the house? But are blaming the Dems who are way in the minority???
Reading this thread, I'm so glad I live in a country where government procedures at least somewhat make sense. I don't think there's any other place where the government failing to pass a budget wouldn't mean that government collapsing, new elections being called, and civil servants keeping the lights on until a new government is formed. It's crazy that the biggest economy in the world can just stop paying its employees because two political parties can grind the whole system to a halt.
people talk about separation of church and state, but i'm pretty sure america has missed the even more important separation of government and state
the way it should work and how i think it works in most places these days; is that the parliament is the main thing that keeps things running and is made up of hundreds of people from different parties, and then on top of that you have the government which is a subset of those people who make larger decisions. And if for some reason the government ceases being able to function (e.g. because enough parliamentarians oppose the current government) then it mostly just means that the big decisions have to be delayed until government can be restored, and aside from that no one notices much of anything.
Built-in inertia in the institutions of the state should ideally keep the state and it's institutions from collapsing even in the absence of the government. Absence of governance should only mean that new acts aren't passed until a government resumes, it shouldn't mean that existing laws and acts become unenforced and existing systems (like civil servant roles) cease to function or be funded.
This inertia really helps when prime minister's and governments are regularly deleted, as we had in Australia some years back, and as the UK had with Lettuce Truss et. al.
Very true.
And the people making these decisions are all multi-millionaires themselves and completely insulated from the fallout, which to me is the most egregious aspect, but here in the US you basically can't run for office if you aren't already wealthy.
I always wondered how are furloughed people tolerating not getting paid and not quitting. With how frequent it happens, some has to be looking for a new job. Yes I know some people can't find jobs outside of govt right now
Most Presidential democracies have systems like that; which would include most of the Americas. Hell, France is kind of going through that right now as well.
Even then, government shutdowns didn't become a thing until the 1980's.
Wild that this is EL5 and only one serious response.
The government is funded through appropriations bills. The US government is set to run out of funding tonight, absent the bipartisan support for a continuing resolution to continue funding the government, and as of this moment, the Republicans need Democratic votes to support it as they lack a control of both legislative chambers.
Democrats, having no power to legislate due to being in the minority, are using this opportunity try and force concessions from Republicans, as the minority basically always does. (And should.)
I believe the united states government was effectively shut down in April 2025. This funding situation is a red herring.
They technically lost a Republican vote to the dems, plus a simple majority won't do it.
Also, they want this shutdown. Even if 100% of dems vote for it, republicans will magically change their mind last minute.
In the spirit of ELI5 I'm going to give this an old school shot:
You see, a large part of the people in in this country have somehow convinced themselves that helping poor people is a bad thing. I'm not sure how that happened. When I was growing up helping poor people was a good thing. It's even in the Bible that you're supposed to help poor people.
The people who think that helping poor people is a bad thing feel very strongly about it and voted really, really hard. They voted harder than the people that think helping poor people is a good thing, and they voted waaaaay harder than the people who most likely think that helping poor people is a good thing but didn't vote for whatever reason.
The politicians who got elected by the people who think helping poor people is a good thing (Democrats) don't have much power right now, but the politicians who got elected by the people who think helping poor people is a bad thing (Republicans) still need the Democrats participation to run the government. The Democrats have refused to help the Republicans when the Republicans are actively trying to take away help for poor people.
So it is the Democrats "fault" for not participating when the Republicans intend to take away help for poor people. But the Republicans are in control and could easily just, you know, continue helping poor people.
Really it's everybody's fault for letting people who think helping poor people is a bad thing become so powerful that they now run the country. We could do better.
You see, a large part of the people in in this country have somehow convinced themselves that helping poor people is a bad thing.
Illegal Immigrants are stealing from me, personally. I should be richer and healthier and happier than I am right now. But every time I turn on the TV, I see grainy video footage of someone with excessively brown skin (or perhaps blue hair) saying or doing something I don't like. And then I get a paycheck in the mail and its too small to cover my increasingly bloated household budget. The people on the TV are telling me that the grainy video footage is why costs are going up far faster than my household income can cover it.
Poverty leads to anxiety. Poor personal health and mental wellness fuels my mental instability. The people on the TV tell me that things used to be much better, but all these illegals ruined it. They're breaking the law and nobody is doing anything to stop them. But now, at long last, we have someone brave enough and strong enough and charismatic enough to lead a revolution against the illegals. We have an army now and that army is bravely fighting for our freedom by catching the illegals and punishing them.
Once we've finished getting rid of all the illegals, we're going to see a big wave of prosperity. And then I, a poor person, am going to benefit enormously.
But the Far Left liberal elites don't want me to enjoy that prosperity. So they're trying to stop our brave heroes by taking away their money and wasting it on stupid Chinese Hoaxes and welfare for Muslim terrorists. This has been a plot I've heard about for a long time, because the people on the radio told me about it when I was much younger. And so we're in an existential fight for the soul of the country.
Really it’s everybody’s fault for letting people who think helping poor people is a bad thing become so powerful that they now run the country.
I agree with you completely. I'm poor and I'm tired of the Radical Leftists saying I shouldn't receive any help.
Mr. Donald President Trump is changing that. We're Making American Great Again. Anyone who can't see that is being brainwashed. I support our President. I love our President. I love Jesus Christ, because he also wanted to help poor people like me. I'm going to join ICE and help my nation become strong again. And then I'm going to join the National Guard so that we can bring this freedom to the rest of the world.
We need to beat the evil communists and radical socialists who are destroying our country. We need to do this before I get any sicker and poorer and older. If we don't do it now, we're going to lose. I don't want my white children to grow up in a world where they are treated badly. I want them to rule the world. So I'm going to fight and do whatever it takes to make sure that we secure the existence of our people and a future for white children
This is excellent satire. I'm surprised people are missing it. To anyone thinking it's real, look at how self reflective it is. No Republican is justifying that brown people are bad because "grainy video footage" told them so. The choice to include the word grainy is hinting that the people with that mindset are often poor. Those people are typically too busy trying to survive to consider that their media sources may be misleading them. Same thing with the radio told me when I was young example. They're calling out that this story has been told their whole lives, and we typically just accept what we learn in our youth as true.
Honestly, I could write an essay on how many things this satire is alluding to and how well it does it, but my lunch break is over.
I looked at your comments feed. How do you comment on a post every minute? And write up all this in a minute. You smell like a bot.
Lmao I kept thinking you forgot to put quotes and was waiting for the inevitable "...this is what too many idiots think, even though it is obvious bullshit", and yet it just...never came. Amazing. This might be the single most stupid comment I've ever read, and I've been on the internet for a while.
I want to know why there would be one when we are so rich with tarriff money supposedly.
It's a group effort of pathological lying
Takes a vote of 60 in the senate to pass the budget. They can’t achieve that without Dems.
Adam Schiff has a non rage YouTube where he puts out short little updates. He did one on the shutdown yesterday.
Schiff even went so far as to add a Vader clip to describe current negotiation tactics. That was new. Usually he just sits in a chair and talks to the camera.
Schiff even went so far as to add a Vader clip to describe current negotiation tactics.
It makes every bit of sense to reference vader in this current government. Even if you get an agreement with trump to fund the things you want to fund, the way he is operating right now he can just impound the funds anyway and send them off to wherever else he wants.
There's no point in negotiating with this president or this congress when they let this president impound whatever he likes, fund whatever he likes, and then get a series of high fives and "no notes" decisions from the supreme court for doing so.
They have absolutely no incentive to negotiate when the deals are toilet paper, and no incentive to vote for continuing to fund a government that currently doesn't fund itself according to its laws.
They should allow it to shut down until the constitutional order is restored (which may be never). The repubs can change the senate rules and nuke the last vestiges of the filibuster to reopen the government with a simple majority. Democrats should force them to do so.
People keep saying this, but it isn't true in of itself. It requires 51 through budget reconciliation.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/93rd-congress/house-bill/7130
The Republicans not going through with it aren't doing so because they want to include things that do not pertain to the budget.
If this is the lie that catches your attention and frustration, you need to come out from under your rock a little more often.
Republicans have gone MAGA cult and will lie their faces off to please Trump. Democrats continue their decades long winning-streak of "most ineffective leadership". Par for the course in 2025.
It's a legitimate question, it's not a lie that Democrats are blocking the GOP on this and you need to get educated on how your government works.
tl;dr: A budget bill needs a supermajority to pass and be fillibuster proof.
It's also not a lie that Trump has ordered Republicans not to negotiate with Democrats because a shutdown gives him more power to fire people from the executive branch.
Most Republicans don't know who was president 6 years ago (2019). Fox news would have them believe it was either Biden or Obama. So it's even easier for Fox news to just say the Dems are shutting down the government and the cult will happily believe it.
To swear in a new dem house member needed to release the Epstein files.
A complete loss of Journalism. Information and its dissemination and main stream access to it, including the echo chambers of social media, have been torn to shreds. Whats left is a propaganda machine. Couple that with the lack of critical thinking taught at any level of education we cannot possibly expect an individual to understand the basics of this current political machine or why the majority of people will CONTINUE EN MASSE to vote against their own interest and well being. Hence your question.
Everyday on Lemmy I see someone's eyes opened to what is really going on. Welcome. I hope it's not too late.
Tantrum
Politics. That is all.
propaganda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusation_in_a_mirror also known as the "NO U" defense.
They have to have more than just a simple majority, and not even all the Republicans want it.
Trump has ordered Republicans not to negotiate with Democrats because a shutdown gives him more power to fire people from the executive branch.
Some things need more than a simple majority to pass, but I don't think this is one of them. Like Democrats, Republicans don't necessarily all vote the same. Some are probably resisting for whatever reason. Could be good reasons, could be bad. But the opposing party is a better scapegoat than your own and the sad reality is that most Americans are not paying enough attention to notice the holes in the logic of what they're saying. So that's why they're blaming Democrats.
I think it passed the house, a simple majority, but got tied up in the senate were you need 60 votes(60%). So without some democrats willing to vote yes in the senate it got hung up. Republicans were unwilling to negotiate on key items and that is where the finger pointing from both sides come from. So in away yes the democrats are “at fault” for doing their jobs and not voting yes on something they do not agree with. But so are the republicans for showing no willingness to discuss and change things to get it to pass. You know the thing that they are suppost to do.
Media in US are all owned by Zionist first rule over America agenda. Republicans are unencumbered by genocide support, while non-voters, and some DNC supporters are not. Both DNC and GOP are Zionist first rule supporters, but DNC needs credibility for some of its other talking points.
Media will support GOP because of their unanimous "finish the job of genocide" Israel support. So the GOP are certain that defending their medicaid/ACA cuts for corporatist/oligarchist supremacist tax cuts is a political winner. Media supporting GOP more, makes the game of blaming democrats for shutdown seem like having "2 aces in texas hold em" play/heavy bet to place.
It takes more than the simple majority to get the budget approved. They need 7 votes from the Democrats to pass it.
Adding this because I don't see it explained anywhere else:
It takes 60/100 votes to pass the budget bills in the Senate, instead of 51, because the Senate still has a filibuster. The minority Democrats have the power to stop the vote from coming up by simply talking on the floor forever until the Republicans give up and go home.
The 53-47 vote was for a cloture motion, which is to put time limits on debate on a particular budget bill. The rules don't let Dems filibuster the cloture motion for obvious reasons, so that vote happened. But it takes 60 votes to pass cloture, so it went down.
Now, there are some resolutions that don't involve coming to a compromise:
The budget can bypass the filibuster (for the most part). They would have to let the Democrats bs for 20 hrs and then it would only take 51 votes to pass the budget. (Or at least the majority of it that I know of). This is intentional, but if they are putting extraneous bologna in the bill, that would cause it to need 60 for those parts. But all of the budgetary needs should be 51
Is it 51 or 50 plus the vice president?
Correction: it is no longer necessary for a Senator to keep talking on the floor to create a filibuster. Any Senator can now simply indicate a filibuster and require an immediate cloture to bypass it. This is sometimes called a “silent filibuster” but mostly it just kept the same name which prevents the public from being aware of the difference.
And since the GOP shits on everything left of far right atm, they get to be petty and maybe get some ground back. Plus last time around, the Dems had leverage and blew it spectacularly. Schumer wrote a strongly worded letter I believe. I feel bad for federal workers, but this government needs a rework anyhow. And not the technocratic, corpo, or fascist facelift some seem to yearn for.