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Sept. 26, 2023 - Doug Collins Podcast
24:49
Why this week in Congress could have been avoided!
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Welcome back to the podcast.
Glad you're here.
We're going to start off this week.
I had some other things going, but I wanted to get you an update on what's going on in Washington, D.C. this week.
Because it's going to dominate all the news.
And after the break, I'm going to break down, in probably nerd form, as best I can, what actually is probably going to happen this week, where we're at this week, and what we can actually expect.
And for conservatives, what does it mean?
I know there's a lot of frustration out there.
Look, I was in Washington last week.
I talked to members.
I talked to folks who were saying, we've got to fight.
We've got to do this.
I get all that.
But here's the deal.
I'm still concerned that we're not figuring out what are the three or four things that we can get that are non-negotiables.
And it seems like we're always negotiating from our final offer.
Folks, you don't ever go to the car dealer and say, I've got $20,000 to spend, sell me a car.
I'll guarantee you that the car dealer will sell you a $20,000 car and even maybe make it $20,500 and say, you know, it's just $500 more.
You never start at your final offer.
Okay, so this is a concern that I'm having and it's also very much of a concern in the sense that you have people who are now bringing a lot of this up that we've known this since January.
So after the break, get your notepads out.
We're going to talk about the appropriations process, the budget deal, and why I think we'll probably end up in at least a couple of days or so.
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I made the statement before the break.
I said that we're probably going to end up in a couple of days of shutdown.
And I do believe that.
Now, it could go longer.
Let me just state up front.
I do believe that this could be a longer play shutdown.
And that meaning anywhere from a week to two weeks...
Probably not more than two, but at least into that round.
Why do I say that?
Because the reality is much of what has been put on the table here is just not doable.
As I said earlier, too many times conservatives get into this point, and I agree with them because I had the same feelings when I was there.
It's too much we try to negotiate with ourselves against a false or against a straw man that we throw up there.
Let me give you the example.
And I'm breaking this down and I want to go slowly for you because this is an important one because too many people get this confused.
They hear what a member will say.
They hear what a commentator will say.
I've got no dog in this fight, except I want to see conservative principles move forward.
So I'm just going to give it to you as the way it lays out right now.
I am all in favor.
Let's get this up front.
I am all in favor for conservatives to do everything they can to cut spending.
Also, I'd be very much happy if the Conservatives would actually go after mandatory spending.
Whole different episode.
But, which is, by the way, accounts for almost 85% of what you spend in your tax dollars.
So, again, does it need to be addressed?
Yes.
For all of you out there that say Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, you know, it's just completely off the table, I'm sorry.
That's not a realistic formula for success in a financial environment.
I understand the politics of it.
Don't get me wrong.
But there's a way to do it and not affect the people who currently get it or the people who are about to get it.
Please hear me on that.
You know, again, politically it's easy.
It's politically easy to just say mandatory spending is off table.
And I don't care what office you're in, I would debate this from any level, because if you don't get to a point of touching this, you have zero, and I repeat, zero hope of ever getting the budget in a manageable position.
That's all I can say.
Okay, so let's just leave that on the table where it's at.
But I do believe we've got to start this.
So I'm all in with the conservatives who are fighting to get a better deal.
I'm all in.
My concern is that they're putting their first and last offers on the table at the same time.
Reason being, they have done it so late.
Let's back up for a history lesson here.
If I had the history machine or the back to the future time machine, we'd do the little...
History lesson here.
Appropriations bills, typically in a fantasy world in which Congress acted and was able to function normally, by about March every year, the Budget Committee would put forth a budget.
The budget is simply an aspirational document, a framework on how we want to spend money, and says here's how much money We believe that the budget should spend, and it gives the numbers of domestic spending, defense spending, and this formula so that the Appropriations Committee will say, okay, we'll spend up to this agreement.
That becomes the agreement that the House Appropriations Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee, would actually work off of these numbers.
So in his essence, if we're going to spend $800 billion On defense, that would be in the budget.
If we're gonna spend $800 billion on non-defense discretionary spending, we do that.
Now that's in a real world, okay?
That you get that passed and then it's binding on the House as they go into the appropriations process in April, May, June.
When there are 12 appropriations bills, 12 appropriations bills.
Each of these bills should be passed individually, and realistically, if the minority does not want to join in, which historically was never not the case, the minority would always join in because there was always a negotiated discussion there.
Not always in the best interest of long-term debt and deficit, I'll freely admit that, but there was always a lot of times you would have bipartisan votes in the House.
That no longer occurs.
And so you don't have the individual up and down votes because you have a lot of amendments, you have policy in which the appropriations process has been taken over.
And I would, from a Republican perspective, say that a lot of this has to do with Democratic bureaucracy that has added bureaucratic policies to things such as the defense approach, where they're actually allowing abortion surgeries to have time off and pay for travel to go And obtain an abortion, which is in direct conflict to the position that they should not be doing that.
Nobody's really denied that at this point, except the Defense Department is doing it.
That's the Tuberville holes that you see in the Senate.
But we've now started adding a lot of policy, how you will spend money.
And it's been there forever, but it's gotten more Partisan as we've gone forward.
Thus, you not only have the problem of not being able to get a minority party support, in this case the Democrats on board with some of the spending bills, you're actually then also hardening your infighting between Republicans on those who will accept certain policies and those who won't accept certain policies.
Ukraine being an example.
I'll just throw these out there.
So I'm laying this out here for you, but this should have started back in April and May.
This is where I do have a little bit of a problem.
Granted, debt ceiling was on the table back then, and we don't know what happened there.
Yes, it was a deal, but As far as a long-term deal, it probably wasn't anywhere close to what we would like to see for the debt ceiling.
And at the same point, the Speaker and Republicans and Democrats, and again, unfortunately, it was more, I think, Democrats than Republicans actually voted for that bill.
It set the spending numbers for the appropriations process.
So that should have then been easy, okay, in a sense of, okay, the numbers are now here.
We're going to spend to this level.
Appropriations committee then goes out.
Well, about a week or two after that in June, conservatives, and there's only a four-vote majority in the House, said this is not enough.
We want to cut the number even further.
So Kevin McCarthy went back on his deal that he had made with the White House and with the Senate to get the debt ceiling bill passed and said we were going to mark up appropriations bills.
Marks up means pass them, amend them, and then pass them to the floor out of committee.
We're going to do it at a lower level than what we just said.
Okay, fine.
It breaks the promise that was said, and I agree that more Democrats voted for it than Republicans, but at the end of the day, it was the deal on the table.
That plays into account why we're in a situation now where Republicans narrowly control the House, Senate is narrowly controlled by the Democrats, and the White House, of course, is Democrat.
That already set up a problem.
But yet, then, Republicans, and you've heard me say this many, many times on this podcast, Republicans cannot blame the Democrats for not passing appropriations bills.
Even if Democrats liked it and they didn't want to vote for it, there's still 218-plus votes, which is all it takes in the House to pass something, that Republicans have, and they're responsible for passing their bills.
If you remember through June and July, nothing really got passed.
In fact, at the end of July, they had passed MILCON, military construction, and VA. They passed that bill, did not transmit it to the Senate, but then they had to pull the ag approach bill, agricultural approach bill, because they couldn't get the votes.
Republicans couldn't get the votes.
So we went through all of August, we come back, and now we're in these three weeks here in September.
The question I have is, this has been known since January.
This is a time frame, and I'm laying this time frame out for you.
This is a time frame that has been known Since January, and the Speaker vote and everything else, and there's many people now thinking that this is something that was laid the trap, so to speak, so that McCarthy would have to deal, Speaker McCarthy would have to deal with this in September, and it would lead to him being gotten rid of.
Now, I may deal with that a little bit more in another podcast.
The odds of him actually being voted out are real.
But may not be as much as you think because there's actually a motion to table.
There's some other things there that could go on.
Anyway, we'll just leave that on the side for now.
Right now, we're five days away from having a shutdown and here's where we are.
Last week, Republicans over the past week and a half have took down three rules.
Rules are the process for making it to the floor and determining how debate will happen.
And Republicans, normally you never see a rule lost by the majority.
You always vote for the rule.
You may vote against the bill, but you'll vote for the rule.
Now, there's been some discussion about that in the last few years is that, you know, if you voted for the rule, did you really just vote for the bill knowing it was going to pass because you didn't have enough votes to stop it?
So the real place to stop it is at the rules again.
Sort of a circular argument, a true argument, but here's where we are.
They took down the rules, couldn't pass DOD approach, that's the Defense Department of Appropriations, couldn't bring the rules to the floor to get a CR done.
So now they've tried a new plan in which they're going to bring up the individual bills.
They're going to try to pass them this week.
Now, remember what I said earlier when we talked about the debt ceiling, is that they're now two numbers that the Senate doesn't agree to.
And the Senate has passed the same bills at a higher spending number.
Also, the Senate is very much prepared to pass Ukrainian aid and disaster relief in a CR. Some of the conservatives do not want to pass a CR and will not vote for a CR no matter what, which puts McCarthy in a very...
Untenable situation, not only with his own conference, but then going to the Senate where you have over 30, probably 40 possibly senators, Republican senators who will vote with, if Bush came to shove, would vote for a continuing resolution with Ukrainian aid and with the disaster bill, part of it, at the higher numbers.
Here's where it gets interesting, and I want you to pay attention here.
The pathway in the House is tenuous at best.
And we already know that one has already come out against the rule on the package that they're wanting to spend starting tomorrow on Tuesday.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has already said, no, we're not doing it.
And even Kevin McCarthy, they first took out Ukrainian money out of DOD. Now they're putting it back in, I believe, in state and overseas operations.
Again, here's the part.
Chip Lakes often talked about this.
We talked about this on Friday's podcast, Friday's Finest, is that sometimes if you give up something to gain, say, three votes, did you then lose six votes in return for those three?
This is where Kevin's at right now.
So I want you to put your mind.
You can be mad at Kevin McCarthy all you want.
You can be mad at all of them all you want.
Some of it's fair criticism.
Some of it's not fair criticism.
But here's the deal.
For everything Kevin gives up to the ones who have voted no, he runs the very strong risk of losing some who had voted yes, who will now vote no, who are not of the same opinion of the conservatives.
That puts that four-vote majority at a very tenuous position.
And also they've had some members out.
And Frank Lucas is supposed to be back this week, but also I think a couple others are supposed to be back that have been out that may vote no.
So you're in a position.
If Kevin McCarthy cannot get a vote on the spending bills, and even if he did, let me just foot stomp this for a second.
Even if he had passed out the three individual, four individual bills that he has brought up for the appropriation process, HHS, DOD, HUD, these bills right here, even if he got those passed, they do not stop the shutdown because they're not going to be taken up in the Senate in time, and they don't solve that problem anyway.
So at the end of the day, a CR of some kind Has to be passed if you're gonna not shut the government down.
This is not being said by much on social media and also in mainstream media.
The only way you solve a Saturday night deadline is to pass all the appropriations bills or at least half of the appropriations bill and let the other half of the government shut down.
That's a possibility in which you pass, say, six of the appropriations bills in a CR and you just let the rest of the government go and shut down for a while.
That's a possibility as well.
Unlikely possibility, but it could.
If he can't do that, then you have building in the Senate right now, which is interesting.
The Senate took the piece of legislation from the FAA authorization, which amended the omnibus bill from last year, and they're making it into a CR. It could come back to the House as early as probably Friday, probably as late as Saturday.
Remember, government shutdown happened Saturday night.
And it will jam the House because there will be a legitimate CR on the floor, which 20 to 30 Republicans in the Senate have voted for, more than likely, and you have at least probably 50 or 60 Republican House members who would vote for it, along with all the Democrats, which would put you at about a 300-vote margin.
In other words, the CR would pass if brought to the floor, if they could get it to the floor.
That puts McCarthy in a real bad spot.
If he goes along with it, Then the conservatives will say he sold out.
He'll then be facing internal.
Whether he will be removed from a position by motion to vacate the chair or not becomes sort of irrelevant.
Inside the caucus, it will be harder and harder to govern even outside the appropriations bills.
So come later this week, there's going to be a real test.
That's why I'm saying there's at least a minimum of a shutdown over the weekend until they figure out what they can do with spending bills.
Now, there's one other thing that many of you have been hearing probably out there, and it's called a discharge position.
And it's some of the moderate Republicans are wanting to sign on with Democrats to discharge a budget bill or a CR. Now that takes more than it becomes ripe, I think, 10 days after it is put forth.
So this is a guaranteed shutdown, but it does open the government back up.
Now, if that happens, you've got a minority of Republicans and a vast majority of all Democrats voting to put this out and then send it to the Senate to get voted on.
This is sort of the doomsday scenario, I believe, from McCarthy, because at this point he's lost complete control of the floor and a Democrat CR is actually going to be voted on on the House floor.
He will do everything in his power to not let this happen.
Can it be tabled?
No.
A discharge position typically comes to the floor.
It's an up or down boat.
So it's not like the motion to vacate the sheriff, which we've talked about with McCarthy's facing for others, can be tabled or sent to a committee.
Again, a lot more different choices there.
What I wanted to just get through your head today is there's no easy choices.
And here was the part that I'm going to go back to.
Let's just say that last week they did pass the CR, which I think border security is a huge issue.
I think HHS budget, you know, the Department of Homeland Security budget is a definite issue.
Is it something that puts Democrats in a relatively bad spot?
Yes, but they've shown no interest in moving anything so far.
So to simply, my question would be, is okay, if you did pass that CR, which I'm glad you're there, but why didn't we do this back in, why didn't we shut the House down in June and start this then, and pass it over to the Senate and let it sit there?
Because it's going to come back with something.
So my question would be, and this is for all of you out there, and for anybody who doesn't have a voting card, let me just be real, and I'm one of those.
Anybody that doesn't have a voting card on TV, podcast, or anything else, remember, we got no skin in the game.
So if you could be on Fox News, MSNBC, you could be the biggest person in the world on social medias, but you don't have a vote, you don't pay a consequence for your vote one way or the other, and you don't pay a price if it goes good or bad.
These members have to send something over and they say, what is the reason if it comes back differently, will I vote for it?
Okay?
And if you're sending over your best and final offer, Knowing that if they change it, you're not going to vote for it, then the House is no better off, frankly, than where they were to start with.
Does it show you're fighting?
Yeah, you're filed.
But yet, what is your plan for next?
Now, I know you don't want to give it away, and if you have that, and I know that Chip Royneau, who I like a lot, they're fighting, and I'm glad to see that.
But what do you tell the American people after the Senate, then strip some of that, just say, well, see, they don't care about border security.
Well, Heck, they haven't been scared about border security in years.
What new is that?
The mainstream media is not going to report it.
Social media can go all the nuts it wants, and Fox News and Newsmax and everybody else can talk about it all at once, but the positions haven't changed.
So the question is, what will you accept?
I know you don't want to talk about that if you're a member of Congress.
I get it.
But for many people out here who are buying the line that the Senate will cave into your demands, Frankly, it's a hope.
It's not a plan.
And I get that.
And I want you to fight.
But my question also goes back to, as I had discussed with a former member, a cabinet member in a previous administration, is what are you gaining?
What are you willing to accept?
And that becomes the problem.
And right now you've got plenty of members in the House who don't view a shutdown as problematic.
Look, here's the interesting thing.
For those of you who think it also saves money, I guarantee you right here a promise on September the 25th, 2023 on a Monday morning, if they open back up the government, there will be a provision in there that says it will be back pay for anybody who didn't get paid during the shutdown.
So you're not going to gain money.
Don't think you're going to save money.
Now, for all the contractors and everybody else who, you know, are dealing in and around the government, they may not get paid because they weren't working or they still aren't.
But at the end of the day, the members, the government, all will get fully funded.
Now, they may have to work a few days with, quote, out being paid, but they will get paid.
That's just a fact in this.
So I wanted to lay this out here.
I didn't want it to be in depth.
I wasn't going to get into the nuances, but I wanted to go nerdy enough to say, hey, this is the problem.
So takeaways from this is we've got a long week ahead of us.
Don't buy the hype that the House can just unilaterally force their will on the Senate.
Because they have the President backing them up in the Senate, and they also have Republicans backing them up in the Senate.
Ukrainian aid will become a huge issue, I think, later this week, along with disaster relief.
These are things to watch for.
But let's get together and say next year, in April and May, let's start calling for shutting down of regular business until appropriations bills hit the floor.
Think about the difference right now that if they could have found 217, 218 votes in the House to pass all 12 appropriations bills that are now sitting in the Senate and now have them sitting in the Senate and say, we'll negotiate on the bills in regular order instead of you trying to jam us with a CR. It's still a hard lift, but I think it would have put them in a much better position than where I am.
And look, before you text me and say, well, Doug, y'all didn't do that.
Look, I get it.
I tried.
I mean, many of us were back internally saying, why are we doing this?
Why is it taking so long?
Why are we not getting appropriate?
But remember, if the majority cannot pass it on their own, these bills do not move.
Bottom line.
End of story.
Thanks for asking.
So Republicans, you can't blame the Democrats on this.
Now you can blame the Democrats in the Senate, but remember, you've got Senate Republicans that are going to vote with the Democrats on these bills.
Fact of life.
So that's your update this week.
We're going to have some more.
We'll break in.
We may even, if we need to, have some more about this.
But if you need me, go to the DougCollinsPodcast.com.
Hit on the email button.
Please send me your thoughts, quotes.
I've been getting a lot of comments from you.
Many of you asking about my future political plans.
I'll just say is, hey, let's keep here on the podcast.
We'll get to those eventually down the line if those come.
Also, I just want to thank the great folks up in North Carolina.
The Faith and Freedom Summit up in Marion.
Had a great time up there on Saturday.
Got to be with Judge Janine.
And so many of the great folks up there.
It was just a great time to be up there speaking.
Thanks for the invite.
Glad to be a part of it.
So this week, just keep your eyes open.
Make sure you know what's happening.
And then we will see how this turns out.
For next time, this is Doug.
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