NYT: The abdication

A must read: Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times writes: 

By almost any measure, Congress is failing. And flailing.

The government is shut down for the 23rd day; many federal workers aren’t getting paid, agencies and museums are closed, and top lawmakers are making no serious effort to resolve the impasse. Congressional staff members have begun referring to themselves as volunteers. The House has not voted since Sept. 19, and Speaker Mike Johnson won’t call members back. He has refused to seat a new Democratic member from Arizona one month after her election victory.

As the Trump administration shifts billions of dollars around to take care of its priorities during the shutdown with scant input from lawmakers, ignoring Congress’s clear constitutional supremacy over the power of the purse, Republicans in control have done nothing to push back. Nor have they exercised oversight of President Trump’s legally questionable military moves off the coast of Venezuela, his imposition of tariffs or anything else that has challenged the authority of their beleaguered institution.

“The Congress is adrift,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. “It’s like we have given up. And that’s not a good signal to the American public.”

No leverage

Trump and his aides have usurped congressional power with little G.O.P. resistance. In many instances, House and Senate leaders have willingly ceded their prerogatives and cheered on the president. The Constitution gives Congress responsibility for levying tariffs, and Trump’s may hurt rural America, but the Republicans who represent it have been mainly silent.

The same goes for the administration’s operations against alleged drug runners from South America. Despite bipartisan support for sanctions on Russia, Republicans reversed course and delayed action because of mixed signals from Trump. He seemed willing to restrain Moscow, then pulled back, then finally imposed sanctions unilaterally yesterday.

Trump himself suggested this week that Congress had little left to do after passing its sweeping domestic policy and tax measure. “We don’t need to pass any more bills,” he told Senate Republicans at the White House on Tuesday. “We got everything in that bill.”

Trump and his Republican allies have steamrolled Democrats this year. Now Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, is employing what little leverage Democrats have by denying Republicans the 60 votes they need to pass a short-term spending bill to fund the government. They want Republicans to extend health insurance subsidies and help millions avoid big premium increases.

But Republican leaders have made it clear that they view their role as subordinate to the president, saying they won’t open talks with their Democratic counterparts unless Trump allows them to do so. And he’ll sign off “as soon as Schumer reopens the government,” the speaker wrote on social media.

Balance of powers

There are evidently some limits to what Congress will swallow. Republicans this week pressed the White House to withdraw the nomination of Paul Ingrassia to head the Office of Special Counsel after Politico disclosed racist texts he had sent.

Senate Republicans also raised the alarm on behalf of cattle ranchers after Trump suggested that he might increase imports of Argentine beef to bolster markets there. The administration showed signs of heeding their calls.

But the funding impasse now has top Republicans talking about a yearlong extension of current federal spending, instead of a new budget. That would further undermine Congress’s authority, shifting the power to shape spending from the once formidable Appropriations Committees to the White House and its budget director, Russell Vought.

At a White House luncheon with G.O.P. members of Congress on Tuesday, Trump celebrated Vought as “Darth Vader,” for the fear provoked by the man behind the administration’s drive to strip spending power from Congress. “You’re doing a great job, I have to tell you,” Trump told Vought.

Then Senate Republicans applauded the man eager to render them irrelevant.

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