Tell our Members of Congress and Biden: Say No to Political Blackmail
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Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
We fully support your insistence on a "clean" Continuing Resolution without poison pills that Republicans are unable to enact through the normal democratic legislative process. Do not give in to Republican blackmail—even if it means a government shutdown. America does not surrender to violent terrorists, and we must not surrender to political terrorists.
Background
Since Republican obstructionism has blocked passage of every single 2024 appropriation bill, large portions of our government will run out of funding and be forced to shut down on the morning of Sunday, October 1—unless a Continuing Resolution (CR) is passed by midnight September 30.
But MAGA Republicans in the so-called "Freedom Caucus" have declared they will block a CR unless it includes poisonous policy provisions they have been unable to enact using democratic legislative procedures. This is political blackmail: "Accept our extreme right-wing demands or we will shut down the government."
The MAGA extremists issued their blackmail demands on August 21st:
Slash domestic safety-net and human-investment spending; increase defense/police/border spending. This means violating the Biden-McCarthy debt-ceiling bill passed last June that mandated a small reduction in domestic spending and a 1 percent increase in defense spending. For many years, domestic and defense outlays were equally balanced, but now defense is at $886 billion compared to only $740 billion for domestic. The MAGA-ites insist on increasing that disparity.
Demonize and persecute immigrants of color by enacting into law the House-passed Secure the Border Act of 2023, which would restore and worsen Trump immigration policies. Among other things, this would include the following actions:
Restarting border wall construction
Defunding NGOs that provide services to migrants
Significantly limiting asylum in the US
Rolling back safeguards for migrant children
Narrowing the Executive Branch parole powers (individual case-by-case asylum)
In the Freedom Caucus's own words: "End the Left's cancerous woke policies in the Pentagon." By which they mean imposing far-right culture war policies on the U.S. military:
Rescinding the military's abortion and reproductive care policy
Rescinding the military's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and training
Rescinding the military's policies protecting transgender rights
Rescinding the military's policies mandating that personnel be vaccinated against Covid
In the Freedom Caucus's own words: "Address the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI to focus them on prosecuting real criminals instead of conducting political witch hunts and targeting law-abiding citizens." By which they mean blocking continued federal prosecution of crimes by Trump, election sabotagers, and insurrectionists by defunding and gutting portions of the Dept. of Justice.
In the Freedom Caucus's own words: "Oppose any blank check for Ukraine in any supplemental appropriations bill." By which they mean cease supporting Ukraine's fight for survival and instead support Russian dictator Putin's war of aggression.
Some terminology that may appear in CR/shutdown news stories:
Continuing Resolution (CR). Prevents government shutdown by allowing federal agencies to continue spending money as if the 2023 budget were still in effect.
Clean. A CR or other law that contains no controversial extraneous provisions ("poison pills") that are tacked on to the CR/bill because the authors cannot get them passed through the normal process.
Omnibus or Minibus. An omnibus appropriation bill combines all twelve of the annual appropriation bills into a single humongous piece of last-minute legislation that is crafted in secret by party leaders and then rammed down the throat of Congress on a take-it-or-leave-it basis with no (or very limited) amendments or time for members to actually read it. A minibus is a combination of two or more appropriation bills, but not all of them, that is passed the same way as the omnibus.
Defense spending. As commonly used, this is as much a political term as a technical one. When politicians want to make the defense share of our tax dollars sound smaller than it really is, they define "defense" as describing just the Dept. of Defense ("Pentagon," "DoD," or "Military") budget. An accurate definition of defense spending or National Security Budget (the term we try to use) includes these categories:
DoD (Pentagon) budget
Military construction
Veterans Affairs budget
Nuclear Weapons development/production (in the DoE budget)
Foreign military assistance programs (in the State Dept. budget)
National defense-related portions of Homeland Security budget
Some or all of the secret "dark budget" for CIA, NSA, DIA, etc.
In some years, it also includes supplemental appropriations for things like aid to Ukraine or the Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism.
References
House GOP hard-liners lay out stopgap funding demands, Roll Call, 8/21
House Freedom Caucus Statement of Demands, 8/21 (PDF)
Congress Embarks on Spending Battle as Shutdown Looms at End of September, New York Times, 9/10 (no paywall)
STATE FACT SHEETS: House Republicans’ Funding Bills Would Have Devastating Impacts for Hard-Working Families Across America, White House briefing paper, 9/12
House GOP Strikes Internal Deal as Shutdown Approaches, The Hill, 9/17