What if we threw a shutdown and nobody cared? (10-02-2025--Hour2)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. So what if there was a government shutdown and nobody seemed to care? What are? What are we in day forty two? I think of the shutdown? Is that where we are? I feel like we I don't even know. I don't even know. They did another vote yesterday. Let me pull out the the Reuter's piece here, Yes, okay? US President Donald Trump's administration froze twenty six billion dollars for Democrat leaning states, following through on a threat to use the government shutdown to target Democrats' priorities. And by the way, everybody knew this was going to happen. Not only did Donald Trump like tweet about it or truth about or social what do they call them? Truth? Social? He said it, He was like, yeah, we'll start shutting down stuff in these in these blue states. And then of course democrats and media, but I repeat myself, they were like, oh my gosh, he's weaponizing this shutdown. Okay, well, you guys shut it down and spare me the arguments about this being a Republican shutdown because they controlled both the House and Senate and the presidency. Yeah, you need sixty votes in the Senate. People, that's not a Republican shutdown. They may have a majority, they do not have a sixty vote majority, so they need some Democrats to go along. And when no Democrats go along, they control the outcome. They have the power to shut down the government. And this was the standard, by the way, that was always in play when the Republicans were the ones shutting down the government. So anyway, you've got the you got the president out there saying well, yeah, of course we're gonna, you know, make it hurt you guys because you're the ones doing it. We're going to you know, put you guys into this vice grip between your base and your constituents. And then at some point, like you'll have to figure out who you value more. Right, But of course we also knew that there was going to be the headlines and the reporting, because once you start seeing the legacy media outlets, as you know, the comms shop for the Democrat Party, a lot of the reporting and the narrative crafting makes a lot more sense. And so they were of course going to use these headlines. Of course they were going to say this. And the Republicans don't care anymore like Donald Trump does not care. Republicans do not care about the way the media is framing this any longer. Let me jump over before I go back to the Reuter's story. This is John Hendraker over at the power Line blog. Trump says he will take advantage of the shutdown to enact a reduction in force or a RIFF, if you will, an RIF laying off large but unspecified numbers of government workers. This is on top of the one hundred thousand workers who have just taken advantage of the administration's deferred resignation program. He says, I also think most voters have seen enough shut down drama to understand that it is much ado about very little, and the goals that the Democrats are trying to achieve, you know, another trillion dollars and spending are unpopular with most voters. Ed Morrissey agreed over at hot air dot Com, saying, I also don't think most voters care. This is inside the Beltway drama for now, and it only matters to the extremely online and the deeply invested partisans. He goes on to say, it looks like the Democrats forgot how shutdowns work. They just enabled doge on steroids. The director of the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB office, Russ Vote, who, by the way, former Congressman Dan Bishop works for OMB. Now he works for Russ Vote. Ed Morrissey says, this is Russ Vote's fantasy life and it will only get worse from here. Right, You've just empowered the guy who wants to fire a whole bunch of federal workers. You just shut down the government, put everybody on furlough, and now we're going to know who's essential and who's not. And if you're a non essential employee, then I don't think you probably are coming back. Thank you Democrats for that. Morrissey goes on to say, expect to see a lot of the journal list. Remember that the journ o list for people who don't remember This was exposed back in the early days, those wild West days of the interweb, when there were list serves. People would sign up, and I mean really it was like a mass distribution and interaction platform before the rise of social media and the group chats and stuff like that. And there was a list serve that was created by some reporters in the DC, well probably the essella quarter from d C up to New York and Boston, right the elites at the major publications and such, and they had this list. They called it the journal List. Get a journalist, journal list, and they coordinated coverage like you could you because somebody got on, somebody got access into the journalist and then they published him. I think it was the Daily Caller that published a whole mess of the of the messages. And you see these reporters literally coordinating and then even bullying other reporters into covering things through a certain lens, which we all knew was happening, but now this was confirmed like this, they literally are coordinating the coverage. So Morrissey says, expect to see a lot of journalist narratives about vengeance, nastiness, partisanship, and so on. Trump won't care, and neither will vote. Republicans in Congress may get some pressure on the margins, but the onus will be on the people who enabled this strategy from Trump and Vote right, Trump and Vote are taking advantage of the strategy you employed, Chuck Schumer, like this was their idea. They wanted to do this. Remember the vote to pass the Continuing Resolution, which I am not a fan of, by the way, Like I would, I want budgets. I want regular order restored to Congress. We have not had a budget in Congress in I don't even know how long, fifteen years. We just get this constant brinksmanship. We gotta, oh, we gotta lift the debt ceiling by tomorrow. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, we're gonna default on the debt. And everybody's like, ah, running around, pants on fire, hair on fire. I should say, well, both probably, and I think we've been through this so many times, like yeah, we don't care until like it actually starts hurting. So there's that. There's also this idea that, oh my god, Donald Trump is hurting his political enemies. I'm old enough to remember when Barack Obama's administration in the first shutdown of my lifetime that I remember when this thing first started up. It was I believe the Tea partiers who tried to force a restraint in spending with a budget vote in a cr The Obama administration closed national parks and went further. Remember they closed sidewalks to prevent World War II veterans from laying eyes on the memorial that was just finished for them. And it was basically a sidewalk, right, It's an open air concrete plaza kind of a thing. And they put up barriers around it, and you had hero flights that were flying in bringing these veterans to see their memorial. And spoiler alert, you know, if the Nazis on the beach at Normandy couldn't stop these guys, your little class, the barriers didn't stand a chance, right, They just pushed those things aside and they rolled in in their wheelchairs. They did not care. Okay. You also had the Obama administration blocking off the side of the road, the shoulder on a road so you could not pull over and take a picture of Mount Rushmore. They put up a barrier around Old Faithful, the guyser. You know, they put a barrier around so you couldn't get close to the you couldn't take a picture, so don't tell me that. Now you're like, oh my gosh, political enemies. That was what Obama did I remember. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. 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Now, I will say, in Congress's defense, I think because there's twelve appropriations bills and I want to say they did, I think they've done more than half of them. So that's progress. Ye, right, it is progress. It is progress. But here, in my opinion, Peete, most of the things that are conservatives in particular want to see done would be accomplished if we simply made the balance the budget balance, because there wouldn't be money for this stupid stuff. Well, I don't know if that's I don't know if I think they would find ways to do things they you know, that they want to do. They would have all sorts of budget tricks and gimmicks and stuff like that, you know, because the federal budget they do like these ten year projections, and so they're like, we're going to do this now and it'll get paid for in ten years from now. It's like, and then of course it never gets paid for. So exactly, but I think it would. I think it would restrain it to some degree. I think you are right exactly. It would restrain the growth versus what we have seen with this budgeting by brinksmanship. Absolutely. And just one last thing. So I'm a Pat Harrigan supporter voter, A campaigned for him last year, and when he came back to Ardeau County last spring, I was in a meeting with him and I confronted him and I said, how could you vote for that budget that rejected seven trillion in expenditures on five trillion in revenue. And his answer, after he kind of you know, swallowed hard and regained his composure, his answer was President Trump didn't run on balancing the budget. And I thought, oh my god, Pat, you know, have we lost you already? So the corruption in DC is terminal. I'm not sure what we're going to do to fix it. But yeah, well, good people to d C and in six months their their toast. So the Republican Party has not done a good job of balancing budgets since Clinton was president, right, So like there, so that it's on brand, right, I mean, the only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans on this matter is that, you know, Democrats don't promise to balance a budget and Republicans have. And that has been a difference with Donald Trump, who I always point out was a lifelong Democrat before he became a Republican right a couple of years back. So so this, the fiscal discipline has never been part of Trump's pitch, and so Harrigan is correct. Now, the fiscal discipline was the pitch of the Republicans, but then they just never followed through on it. So I guess at least now they're more honest about it. Yeah, we need your voice, s feet, God bless you stay healthy. All right, I appreciate that, George. Take care. Yeah, I mean it's disappointing, but I've you know, this is why, Look, I tell people this all the time, never fall in love with a politician, okay, because they're going to break your heart. They always do. So you're you need to view these relationships as transactional because that's what they are. Like, I want you to go do this thing, and you will disappoint me because you're going to disagree with me on something. Because nobody agrees with me on everything. I know. There are a lot of people with the wrong opinion about a lot of things. I don't understand it. But we're gonna you know, they're not going to vote the way I want them to vote on everything on But so you have to look at it like on balance, what are they saying? What are they doing? And I've known for years, I don't know how long now, ten years, fifteen years, Republican pay the lip service to fiscal discipline, but they never deliver. And at least they made some progress this year towards some appropriations bills being done. But I'll believe it when I see it, you know, I'll believe this idea that they will get that done, they'll return to regular order. I'll believe it when I see it. Because there are too many incentives for continuing the way we are continuing with the brinksmanship, because it gives you all these different levers to pull and ways to put money in and put everybody on a deadline. Look, anybody in sales knows this. With a you apply pressure. When you're trying to make the sale right, you apply pressure. And you could do that in a bunch of different ways. One of them is to create the sense of urgency. And so you're creating a sense of urgency by saying we have to do it by this day, by this time, and if we don't get it done, everything stops and oh my gosh, end of the world. So both parties know how this works. Well, I thought both parties knew. Democrats apparently forgot. And here's the problem with these shutdowns, which by the way, I'm not opposed to, right because the only thing that to me is scarier than a shutdown is when government is actually still functioning, Like that's I don't I am totally fine with gridlock. I'm totally fine with them not getting anything done. I'm totally fine with them not like just stop doing what you're doing, you know. So I'm okay with a shutdown. The people who are not getting paid they will then get their salt or their paychecks when government reopens. But the problem with the shutdown, which people should have learned by now because there have been what a dozen of them or so, is that there's no off ramp for the party that shuts it down to try to, you know, draw a line in the sands someplace, like what's the off ramp for you guys here? You're like, we're not going to vote for this continuing resolution unless we get a trillion dollars in new spending. That's what the Democrats are saying. So if you don't get the trillion dollars, you can never vote for that unless you then cave. And that doesn't look good. So what are you gonna do? Where's your row ramp? Here? You're holding out hope that they'll give you half of that loaf of bread and then you'll come back and fight for the other half. You're dealing with Trump and Russ vote. They don't want the government operating at the full employee headcount that you wanted to. They don't want to fund these things, so you shutting down the government. It doesn't matter to them. Russ votes happy. He's fixing to draw up the list of all the positions and programs and grants and stuff to stop funding. They're working on it. They've already announced some of them. Eighteen billion for transit projects in New York, another eight billion for green energy projects. And sixteen Democrat run states. There's your twenty six billion dollars that blue states now are losing thanks to Democrats. Don't throw us in that briar bratch. So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and before he died, my mom and my dad took care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family. But things are different today because of the work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with huge hearts. I've been a supporter for twenty five years. This cause means a lot to me. I participate in the annual Walk to end Alzheimer's and I'm leading a Charlotte team again this year, and it's called once again Pete's Pack. You can sign up and you can join the team and walk with us. It's on October eighteenth that truest field. Sign up at alz dot org slash walk and then you could search for my team name Pete's Pack. There's also an at thepeatpod dot com. There's also a link in the description of this podcast. Also, I'll be seeing the Gastonia Walk on October eleventh then, so you can make a team and join that one too, or make a donation and help me hit my goal of five thousand dollars. If you do, I really appreciate it. There are a bunch of other walks all over the Carolinas. You can go to alz dot org slash walk for all the dates and locations. We're closer than ever to stopping Alzheimer's. Can you help us get there? Will you walk with me? For a different future, for families, for more time for treatments. This is why we walk. Alrighty, So back to the Reuter's story here on the government shutdown, the Shuma shutdown. This is Reuter's. Keep in mind, the moves made clear that Trump would carry out his threat to take advantage of the shutdown to punish his political opponents. Everything is cast through this prism and extend his control over the seven trillion dollar federal budget established by the US Constitution as the domain of Congress. Oh so wait, okay, so now now, now we're wanting Congress to do a budget Reuters. Congress passed a clean cr and Democrats voted it down. Democrats refused to support it. And so when there is no CR, there's no approved budget. Executive is going to be managing the budget. Now, if you don't like it, then go ahead and past the CR. That's the off ramp. But you can't take it for political reasons, internal Democrat political reasons. I'll get to that some seven hundred and fifty thousand federal workers were ordered not to work. Well, isn't that just like I don't know every day that I kid I kid the federal workers. Others such as American troops Border patrol agents, they are working without pay, but again they will be paid after the government reopened. The Department of Veterans' Affairs said it would provide burials at national cemeteries, but would not put up the headstones or mow the grass in the interim. JD. Vance said at a White House briefing that the administration would be forced to resort to layoffs if the shutout shutdown rather lasts more than a few days, adding to the three hundred thousand who will be pushed out by the end of the year. Previous shutdowns have not resulted in permanent layoffs because the Democrat presidents didn't want to do that. The US Patent and Trademark Office said it would layoff one percent of its fourteen thousand employees. See, this is one of the things that never happens in gov co. In the private sector, you do a reduction in force when you achieve efficiencies. Now sometimes obviously you're expanding, your business is growing, so you need to add more people. But even when you do that, you're always looking for efficiencies. And when new technology becomes available, or you know, you've got higher profits and so now you can implement new equipment or something that now you don't need six people to do the job, now you need five people. So private businesses are always doing this sort of this brush clearing the undergrowth, right, because the larger an organization gets, the more of that you get. It's just sort of the natural tendency of large organizations, and the government is a very very very large one. But the people who would be making those decisions have an incentive to not fire workers because those workers get to vote on whether the ones doing the firing get back into their jobs too. So it's like a mutually assured destruction kind of a scenario. There so there's an incentive for elected officials not to do this. Republican Senate leader On Thune dismissed concerns that the spending freeze amounted to hostage taking, which is what Democrats are saying now. And so for the record, in case you are confused by this term now being applied to the Republicans when they're not the ones that are blocking the passage, here's the rule. When the Republicans block a continuing resolution and shut the government down, that is called hostage taking. Taking the American public hostage right. When the GOP does the shutdown, it's a hostage taking. When the Democrats block a continuing resolution forcing a shut down, the Republicans are also doing the hostage taking. Okay, so that was unclear before. That's the rule. In other words, the Republicans are the only ones that know how to do the hostage taking. Apparently Thune said, well, vote to open up the government and that issue goes away, right, I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Indeed, US Republicans hold a fifty three to forty seven Senate majority, but they need the support of at least seven Democrats to meet the Chambers sixty vote threshold for the spending bills. Democrats say Republicans are responsible for the disruption because they control the House, the Senate, and the White House. But again, they don't have a veto proof. They don't or not veto birth. They can't get past the filibuster, which is sixty vote threshold. They need sixty votes and so they need seven Democrats, and seven Democrats have not agreed. They had three, so they need four more. Republicans say Democrats were surrendering to partisan pressures to oppose Donald Trump, even though they have routinely backed spending bills in the past. They also repeated a false claim. This is what Reuters calls a false claim that the Democrat proposal would extend health coverage to people who are in the country illegally. Not a false claim, actually true, Reuters. It's actually true. According to the nonpartisan CBO, the Democrat plan would only restore coverage to certain categories of immigrants who are in the country legally, like asylum seekers and people on work visas. I'm gonna explain why this is problematic here, because what Republicans are saying is true that you are giving it to illegal immigrants. But what Democrats are doing is using parolees. They're saying it's parolees which were admitted n mass under the previous administration illegally, So that was supposed to be done on a case by case basis, but Alexandro Majorcus gave everybody parole status. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Asheville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. 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I did see doctor Greg Murphy, congressman from North Carolina down east. He said he is he has told the payroll office or whatever he's like, don't give me any pay so he's not taking a check. He's not taken a salary while the government is shut down. An anti Israel troll says it's time for Democrat states like California, Illinois, and New York to escrow all federal tax payments until the punitive leadership stops. California alone could bankrupt the United States. Dude, we are like forty trillion dollars in dead already, we are already bankrupt. So good luck with that. Give it a shot. Yes, but you want escalation. See, this is what democrats, this is what they want when they're not in power, is the constant escalation. This is what the authors of the Fourth Turning predicted with this nullification fight, where you have a state versus the Feds and they just keep ramping up against one another and there's no off ramp for either of them, and then you end up with nullification crisis. And then you end up with a crisis, and that can be very bad. And every time you end up in this cycle, this fourth turning, each turning lasts about twenty years. We're due for one. And every time you end up with this kind of a turning in this winter season, if you will, it's very bloody. A lot of violence, a lot of people die, and there are a lot of people who want that to happen in America. It's unfortunate. I disagree with that. I think these people are ridiculously naive. They think it's not going to affect them. They think this is how we win, and you are so incorrect. Everybody just loses. This is from Jim who says the federal government shut down just two weeks to flatten the curve. There you go, Let me give you the politics of this. This actually, I mean, it's being called the Schumer shutdown, and I understand why. Yes, but it might also be called the AOC shutdown. Here's why, David stromatotair dot com. Republicans are correct to label this the Schumer shutdown. It is indeed Chuck Schumer who is the Senate minority leader, and he's making the decisions. Obviously, Democrats hope that picking this fight with the president will redown to their benefit, about which they may be very mistaken, but time will tell. See. This is also what Democrat voters are demanding. The base is demanding Democrats take a bullet. That's what like they they When you look at the polling, I've covered this over the last six months or so, like they're angry at the Democrat Party because the party is not doing enough to fight Trump. That's why they're cursing all the time. That's why they're picking fights, and that's why they're doing this. They're trying to send a message to their base that they are tough, that I'm gonna fight the orange hitler, like that's what they're trying to do. So for Schumer, this is a more personal thing, though, because he is almost certainly facing a primary challenge from AOC who has made no secret that she wants credit for the shutdown. She has been inviting senators to her office to negotiate a solution to the standoff. She's being portrayed as a powerbroker in the Democrat Party, and the current griontocracy is not at all pleased by this. The socialist wing of the Democrat Party hold the influence cards right now. The capitulation to an avowed socialist, The word democrat is silent on that one. By the way, the first rung on the it's the first rung on the ladder to communism, and it should alarm Americans today. The Democrats are being led by perky demagogues whose guiding principle is not fairness or consistency but raw ideology. Okay, And so the real threat to Schumer is coming from his left right. He's going to get the center left, the moderates you know in the Democrat Party. He's going to get them in the general election, no problem. The problem for him is does he get to the general election. He can't be sure he's ever going to get a shot at the general to get those moderate, you know, lean left Democrats. If he can't dispatch of AOC, his fate is in the hands of people who think AOC is the moral leader of the party. Schumer, you may recall, has said that shutting down the government is much worse than passing a continuing resolution. He did that couple what was it a year or so ago, and remember the blowback he got. That's when the Democrat base turned on Schumer when he caved to Trump. So what changed AOC. He's afraid of AOC. So the Democrats are basically holding the country hostage, largely because Schumer is scared of a socialist bartender who is drunk on her own power. As David Strom at hot air Dot com and he's right, by the way, he is correct regarding the oh this was from Eric Erickson. Democrats have declared Trump to be Hitler. But if he makes permanent the temporary healthcare subsidies from COVID that cover illegal aliens and restores funding for progressive television and radio stations, he can go back to Hitler, ring to his heart's content. That's like, yeah, that's the position now of the Democrat Party is a curiosity of incompetence, says Ericson right. This is about codifying stuff that was rolled back, you know, bringing back and codifying things that were rolled back in the One Big Beautiful Bill, which was the medicaid for illegal aliens. That's part of this package. And Democrats have said that ro Kana has admitted it. Maxine Waters has admitted it. And the first step, Rob Henderson points out the believers at the Manhattan Institute remember the steps right, number one, first step and by the way, this applies to a great many things. I noted this pattern back when we were going over the voter ID law in North Carolina Lo those many years ago. Right. Step one is it's not really happening. You guys are lying it's not happening at all. Step two is okay, yes, it's happening. This is not a big deal. There's like no fraud. It is so small it's not even worth pursuing. Then step three is Okay, it's happening, and it's actually it's a good thing. It's a good thing that it's happening. And then step four is the people who are freaking out that it is happening. You guys are actually the problem. Those are the steps. It's not happening. Okay, it's happening, but it's not a big deal. Actually it is happening, and it's a good thing it's happening. And finally, you guys who are objecting to it's happening, you're the problem. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.