Trump, Musk Team Up To Kill Pork Bill

Complete chaos has now broken out in the Congress of the United States with conflict between Speaker Mike Johnson on one side and President Trump and Elon Musk on the other.

What the hell is going on here? 

First, politics is a battle between principle and pragmatism. What you want and what is possible are two different things. Anybody in my job who says the pragmatic considerations are simply a lack of will or a betrayal of principles does not understand politics. That, or the person is lying.

Many people are doing this today. When Congress comes up with any sort of deal, some suggest that is a violation of principle: “If only they had acted with Nietzschean willpower, they could have gotten 100% of what you wanted.”

That is a lie. 

Conversely, anybody who says pragmatism ought to lead to complete abandonment of principle is also lying. Anybody who says, “Listen, I didn’t give away the store because otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten anything,” is usually lying. 

The art of politics and the difficulty of elective politics is finding the balance between what you want — principle — and what you can get — pragmatism.  

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That is what has been happening in the House over the last 48 hours.

A continuing resolution is currently being considered. So what exactly is a “continuing resolution”? Basically, it’s stopgap funding. Why now? Because Congress is unable to pass a real budget with Chuck Schumer as the head of the Senate and with a very, very slim House majority for Republicans. Remember, Joe Biden is still technically the president.

I have been thoroughly enjoying watching the entire legacy media suggest that Elon Musk is actually the president. They are off by at least two orders of magnitude. Joe Biden is the actual president. Trump isn’t even the president yet. 

They say Trump isn’t the president; Musk is the president right now. 

The actual president of the United States is a senile dotard whom Democrats refused to oust as the actual president, despite his senility. But that guy can still stand in the way of anything Republicans pass in the House, and he can veto legislation if he doesn’t like it.

So, what is the actual position right now with regard to the continuing resolution? The Wall Street Journal editorial board correctly assessed it, writing: 

In lieu of passing a real budget, the House and Senate have agreed on another continuing resolution, or CR, that will extend through March 14 in the new year. The only virtue here is that the government won’t shut down if the CR passes, and it will give the new GOP Congress a chance to use budget rules to pass a “reconciliation” bill next year with 51 Senate votes.

This means Chuck Schumer won’t be able to extort more spending if Republicans want at least some of their priorities to pass. But Mr. Schumer is going out with a CR bang, and the GOP is once again forced to take it. Some Republicans want to blame Speaker Mike Johnson for getting too little in exchange. But as long as they refuse to vote for a CR, the Speaker has no choice other than to count on Democratic votes to pass it. And that means bowing to their policy priorities, which is spend and spend.

This is how Mr. Schumer wants it. The GOP House actually passed nearly half of appropriations bills this year, and Susan Collins and Patty Murray passed almost all the Senate bills through the Appropriations Committee. But Mr. Schumer refused to bring them to the floor. He wants the end-of-year jam session when everyone wants to leave for Christmas, and he prevailed again.

That’s how giant omnibus packages come about. So what is actually in this package? A bunch of pork. They could have passed a clean continuing resolution, which would have continued discretionary spending at prior levels, basically until Trump takes office. 

But they didn’t do that. Instead, they decided to load it up with $100 billion for disaster relief funds (which is overkill) and $10 billion in farm pork.

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By the way, this is something many Republicans wanted — this farm pork bill, including Donald Trump and JD Vance. They both wanted that farm bill spending included. 

There are conflicting interests between the parties who are involved in this negotiation. Trump’s mandate is to take action. He wants to clear the decks before he becomes president of the United States.

Trump would love to enter office with all spending off the books, so he doesn’t get blamed for the spending at present or blamed for an increase in the debt ceiling. Johnson’s mandate is to try to get most of what Trump wants, even if that means making some concessions, which he must do by negotiating with his own caucus.

The idea that Johnson has the singular ability to pass a bill himself ignores the fact he has an incredibly slim majority in Congress. 

One of the most annoying suggestions people in my position very often make is that the person who is charged with leading a coalition of widely disparate interests can singlehandedly ram things through. The only instance in my lifetime a leader was able to do that on the Republican side was Newt Gingrich — for about two years. Then, his own Republican caucus basically ousted him.

Politics is the art of balancing principle and pragmatism. So on the one hand is President Trump, who wants the things that he wants, so he is in favor of the continuing resolution. He wanted farm spending. He also wanted disaster relief spending. 

On the other hand is Johnson, who wants to do the things Trump wants him to do.

But who’s actually going to be the guy who has to negotiate the deal?

Johnson’s job is to cobble together the coalition to get 70% of the loaf of bread. He represents pragmatism, while Musk represents principle 

Everyone knows that in order to get 70% of the loaf, 30% excrement comes with it. 

I am not defending the bill; I would not vote for this bill were I in Congress. I wouldn’t vote for farm spending. I think that makes the industry significantly less competitive and efficient. I would not vote for a giant disaster relief package because, frankly, I think much of disaster relief should be done at the state level. I don’t see why California needs to subsidize Florida or why Florida needs to subsidize California.

But let’s be clear about what happened here: The bill was pre-cleared and pre-negotiated between the White House and Congress.

Then Musk, whose job is to identify the principle, came along, stated it, and created all sorts of backlash. 

That backlash has been directed at Johnson. But that is a misdirection. This is all a complicated negotiation that happens when disparate interests are involved. 

Again, a lot of the heat has been brought to Johnson.

You can yell at Mike Johnson. It’s fine. He’s a politician. He’s used to taking it. He’s the Speaker of the House, which is legitimately the worst position in American government.  

I am stating what I have said about Johnson, McCarthy, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner, going back years and years: Anybody who says any of these leaders have the capacity to singlehandedly ram through all of the things you want without giving up any of the things you don’t want is lying to you.

They are not telling you the truth.