The Shutdown Is a Knife at a Gunfight

"That real issue is Trump's challenge to Congress's constitutional taxing and spending powers. The president has refused to spend funds that Congress appropriated, and he is raising revenues that Congress never approved. Just today, for example, the Pentagon announced a so-called gift of $130 million from an unnamed Trump supporter to fund military pay during the shutdown. Raising funds from plutocrat allies in defiance of the legislature is something that the authors of the Constitution might have cited as a death spasm of republics."

"The shutdown of the federal government that began October 1, now the second-longest in history, has also been called the "most bizarre" and the "weirdest." What makes this fight so unusual is that it is simultaneously the least angry of the five major shutdowns since 1990 and also the hardest to resolve. Previous shutdowns were fought over specific grievances: Republican pressure against new taxes in 1990,"

The federal government shutdown began October 1 and is now the second-longest in history, described as bizarre and the weirdest. The standoff is unusually low in public anger yet unusually hard to resolve. Past shutdowns revolved around discrete grievances that provided exit ramps. The current stoppage was triggered by expiring COVID-era tax credits for Affordable Care Act premiums, a stated bargaining point. The deeper conflict involves a presidential challenge to Congress's constitutional taxing and spending powers. The president has refused to spend congressional appropriations and is soliciting private donations and other revenues to fund government functions, bypassing the legislature.

Read at The Atlantic