Catastrophe and Calamity Loom

I’m alarmed at how few people are alarmed at what is going on in Congress right now, for two reasons.  We stand on the threshold of an international catastrophe like the world has never known, and a separate national devastation resulting from refusals to compromise.

The two thresholds:

1. President Biden asked Congress for $105.5 billion for an array of projects that include helping Ukraine in its war with Russia. Most everyone in Congress wants it — except the Republicans’ far-right fringe, which refuses to let it pass unless Biden agrees to everything it wants in an unrelated bill. If the fringe gets its way and Congress fails to approve Biden’s request, it will lead to a worldwide catastrophe the likes of which it has never seen.  It’s already beginning and Putin’s Russians are ecstatic about it.
2. Congress must adopt a budget by Sept. 30 of each year or the government shuts down.  It failed to agree on a budget by that deadline this year, so Congress adopted a Continuing Resolution (CR) that extended its life, in major cases, to Feb. 2.  But there’s a limit to CR’s use, so if the parties haven’t found a compromise  by Feb. 2 the resolution will expire, renewal will not be possible, all discretionary spending will be automatically and indiscriminately stopped, and funding for some of the federal government’s most important and most sensitive programs will lose all funding, and we’ll be in a national calamity.

Okay, granted, these are worst-case scenarios.  But unless the Republican Party decides that MAGA is not the party it wants to be, they are very real possibilities.

The problem is that Congress has been able to pass only one bill since Republicans took control of the House after the 2022 Midterm Elections.  That was the annual National Defense Authorization Act, but now it has seven weeks in which to compromise on a boxcar full of what appear to be uncompromisable major issues, and three of those weeks are being taken up with Christmas recess.  Is it possible to come out of this whole?

Let me expand on all that to see clearly where we are, how we got here, and what we can do now.

As for the looming worldwide catastrophe, President Biden asked Congress for $105.5 billion to support, among several other things, Ukraine’s war with Russia.  The bill’s passage is mandatory for the world because if America turns its back on Ukraine, Ukraine will almost certainly fall to Russia, Russia’s relationships with China and North Korea will strengthen dramatically, and an awakening and strengthening Bear will have a clear path to rebuilding the Soviet Union.  Poland next?

What would stop it?  The European members of NATO certainly could not trust the United States to join their defense should Russia attack a NATO country – after all, if we turn our backs on Ukraine, why wouldn’t we turn our backs on them?– and NATO without the United States could not pretend to stand up to a newly strengthened Russia, especially a newly strengthened China-backed Russia.

Again, worst-case  scenarios.  But very possible.

Most members of both parties in Congress support Biden’s request, and even though polls show that Americans’ support for Ukraine might be waning, most Americans still support it.

But the House Republicans’ extreme-rightwing members are refusing to let it happen unless they get every detail they want in a completely unrelated bill.

They demand an immigration bill that would significantly narrow the right to apply for asylum in the United States, even though U.S. and international law recognize that right. Their bill would prevent the federal government from permitting blanket asylum in emergency cases, such as for Afghan and Ukrainian refugees.  It would end the asylum program that permits people to enter the United States with a sponsor.  And it would require the government to build Trump’s wall, including giving the government power to take private land wherever needed to do it.

Biden offered to compromise, but the extremists would have no part in compromise.  They told him that if Congress changed even one word of their bill they would head home for their scheduled three-week recess and the bill be damned.

After all, they don’t care what  happens to Ukraine.  They don’t want to support Ukraine anyway, so it matters not a whit to them if Ukraine loses its funding.  Neither do they care what the grown-ups in their own party say, and neither did they care what anybody else thinks. Either accept our bill exactly as it is or we’re going home.

As House Speaker Mike Johnson(D-La.) put it, “We must secure our own border before we secure another country’s.”

So they went home, paralyzing Congress from accomplishing anything until members return to Washington on Jan. 9, which will be just four weeks before the national calamity is due to hit.

Democrats, both capital-D Democrats and lower-case-d democrats, hate what the right-wing fringe is doing.  Those fringe Republicans think they are being patriotic by trying to get rid of that that communist Joe Biden, but in reality they are inflicting harm on America’s well-earned reputation as a reliable global leader, and even a dependable partner, in a very dangerous world.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said it well when he wrote in a memo, “As President Biden works hard to make American families safer every day, congressional Republicans are actively undermining our national security interests — both domestically and the world — because they’d rather go on vacation than do their jobs,”

Russians are loving it.

“Well done Republicans!” gloated one Moscow broadcaster.  “They’re standing firm!  That’s good for us!”

Another predicted the Republicans’ actions would cause the downfall of Ukraine, and “the downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden.”

Others reveled in telling their listeners that the Republicans had given Putin a great gift, that Ukraine now was in “agony,” and that it was “difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.”

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s far-right prime minister and friend of Putin, piled on.  He sent allies to Washington to openly urge their right-wing counterparts in Congress to join him in backing Putin.

And it worked.   Their Republican comrades in America’s Congress went home with  crucial work left undone.

So much for the looming catastrophe.  Now a few words about the pending calamity.

Among other things Congress must do by Feb. 2 – and again, no extension of time is possible – is authorize operations for three major federal programs.  The cumulative effect of cutting for all three simultaneously would be calamitous. The three are:

The Farm Bill.  The Farm Bill supports major commodity crops like wheat, corn and soybeans, and provides nutrition assistance for low-income households through programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  All these programs will expire if the parties cannot agree on a bill.

The National  Flood Insurance Program.  If this program isn’t renewed it will not be able to provide new flood insurance contracts and neither homeowners nor  business owners affected by flooding will not be able to repair or rebuild their homes,

The Federal Aviation Administration.  When Congress allowed FAA authorization to expire for two weeks in 2011 it stopped more than $10 billion in national airspace and support projects, halted 200 FAA-funded construction projects, and withheld $2.5 billion in grants to new airport projects.  That sort of thing would resume if its funding were cut.

Maybe the good news is that the shock of clearly seeing where our path is inexorably leading us will wake us up, all of us, but especially the rightwing Republicans in Congress.  Hopefully, seeing that they’ve run out of time to accomplish truly crucial work will force them to realize they can’t play games anymore.  Hopefully, Congress’ grown-up Republicans will break the logjam in time to save the world from catastrophe, the nation from calamity, and resume doing what we sent them there to do.

All this obviously can be especially good for Democrats.  Come November people will remember that Republicans were in control through all this and they have nothing to show for it.  They haven’t even accomplished their most basic responsibilities.  And Democrats, including lower-case democrats, will remember which party purposefully drove us to the cliff’s edge – or, who knows, over it.

Add that to the fact that lawsuits are active all over the nation demanding that the Republicans’ super-gerrymandering be undone before the 2024 General Election…

And things could be looking up for Democrats in all three branches.

Again, al blue tsunami is coming — if we vote.