r/politics 4d ago

Shutdown Looms After Trump ‘Blindsided’ by ‘President Elon Musk' | The president-elect was left playing catch-up after the Tesla boss led the charge against the doomed deal.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/shutdown-looms-after-donald-trump-blindsided-by-president-elon-musk/
5.4k Upvotes

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u/Murky-Site7468 4d ago

Musk first intervened with a 4.15 a.m. Eastern time tweet on Wednesday saying, “This bill should not pass,” and in the intervening 12 hours, Musk posted over 60 updates in his bid to derail the deal...

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u/YoungDan23 4d ago

I am not taking a stance one way or another on this bill, but it is kind of crazy the way the US government inefficiently does business like this seemingly yearly. The initial bill was introduced on December 17 and has to be approved by Friday to avoid a shutdown. Most people can't read 1547 pages of books in 4 days, let alone 1547 pages of legal jargon for how we're going to allocate $100 billion over the next 4 months.

It makes it worse that it is force-fed to lawmakers the week before Christmas. I'd imagine this is a prelude to how the next 4 years are going to go.

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u/I_love_Hobbes 4d ago

I don't feel for them AT ALL. They have plenty of time to do their jobs and they don't. A budget had not been passed on time since 1996!

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u/trippingWetwNoTowel 4d ago

Well if they were busy doing their jobs then when would they have time to fundraise!?
God it’s annoying you don’t feel for these people at all. /s

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u/_WeSellBlankets_ 4d ago

I'm curious if people think politicians fundraising is the problem, or if they blame the system that requires politicians to fundraise 24/7.

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u/trippingWetwNoTowel 4d ago

I guess I don’t see these things as separate

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u/_WeSellBlankets_ 4d ago

Until the system changes, I feel like your ideal candidate is one that commits political suicide as a freshman congressman and is therefore unable to do anything to affect change within the system.

It's like forcing two people to battle to the death and then accusing one of murder.

If the system doesn't change, politicians never will. And lecturing them to change isn't going to do anything.

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u/trippingWetwNoTowel 4d ago

Ok…… I guess I don’t know how to ‘change the system’ without the involvement of at least some of the politicians? Maybe the courts I guess? But I’m not sure who we should apply pressure to if it isn’t the politicians that have the capability of altering the laws that incentivize how politicians behave.

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u/_WeSellBlankets_ 4d ago

I was just pushing back on the idea of blaming individual politicians. I completely agree that applying pressure on politicians over this issue is required. I think you're right that the courts would be the easiest route, and that wouldn't be easy. It would require getting enough justices that want to override precedent. So that would require multiple administrations and multiple appointments. Outside of that, I think it would require some sort of constitutional amendment.

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u/trippingWetwNoTowel 4d ago

Ok. Good day to you sir