This past weekend, U.S. Representative Alex Mooney proudly voted to shut down the federal government — once on Friday and again on Saturday — which would have put the majority of West Virginia’s 30,000 federal civilian employees out of work for however long the shutdown lasted. ...
Why should Congress get paid for shutting down the government? Maybe Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig was trolling House Speaker Kevin McCarthy when she introduced the My Constituents Cannot Afford Rebellious Tantrums, Handle Your (MCCARTHY) Shutdown Act, but we suspect many Americans would ...
by Jackie Calmes For years, I stalked the Capitol halls amid Congress’ fiscal-year-end follies, waiting with other reporters for a breakthrough to end the latest faux crisis. I’m hard-pressed to recall a budget fight so politically self-defeating as the one now cleaving the House ...
by Jackie Calmes The kudos for Kevin McCarthy were short-lived. Last spring, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rightly got props from folks across the political spectrum for compromising with President Joe Biden to raise the nation’s debt limit and thereby avert economic armageddon. ...
by Jonathan Bernstein The House bill that sets Pentagon policies for the next year, which began as mundane and bipartisan, passed on Friday on a party-line vote. The bill received a 58-to-1 vote in committee, but radical Republicans offered dozens of amendments on such issues as ...
by Charles Tiefer The slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives recently voted to give itself a streamlined way to fire civil servants and shut down federal programs it doesn’t like — outside the standard process of review and debate. This method, known as the ...