Matt Gaetz was right about one thing:
Rep. Matt Gaetz
He argues that way that Congress budgets and appropriates money is a mess. A truly serious mess.
He’s right.
The better way is to vote separately on an appropriation for each federal department. In other words, how much money will the Defense Department get in the coming fiscal year.? Separate appropriation bills for 11 other major departments would also be introduced, debated and passed individually.
Instead, Congress for years and years has lumped everything into a single “continuing resolution” that extends past spending amounts for a set period of time. Without the resolution or separate appropriations no one could get paid and the government would have to shut down.
The continuing resolution, because it funds the entire federal government, is so big, no one person can ever know what’s in it. Stuff is slipped in, often at the behest of lobbyists or individual lawmakers for favorite projects. Rational debate is throttled. To call the process opaque is far from an accurate description; it’s governance in a dark room.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has used this issue to explain why he wanted to force the removal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Cal.) as speaker. Even though removing McCarthy doesn’t get Congress even one stop closer to his goal.
General agreement is that Gaetz was motivated by personal animas against the speaker because he hasn’t sidetracked an ethics investigation against Gaetz. The list of alleged violations include sexual misconduct illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted impermissible gifts under House rules. The Ethics Committee still is investigating.
Gaetz is rumored to be considering a run for governor in Florida. The thought makes me queasy.