Libertarian Victory: You Mean We Can Shut Down Government Without Even Passing A Law?

It is happening again. Congress will enact another bloated, pork-laden and largely unread omnibus spending bill to complete formal appropriations for the 2024 fiscal year ending October 1st. Joe Biden said he’ll sign it.

Lamenting the 1,012-page, $1.2 trillion package compiled by the House and Senate leadership he dubs “The Firm™,” Utah Sen. Mike Lee pleaded all week long for lawmakers not to “pass bills they haven’t had time to review, debate, and amend.”

Today’s primary crisis is not that of shutdown by failing to come to terms, but the refusal to terminate major parts of a sweeping federal enterprise whose dimensions would be unrecognizable to our Framers. Without addressing that primary issue of federal bloat, these episodes will only worsen.

It’s not just federal so-called entitlements that operate on autopilot today; effectively all discretionary and military spending is unstoppable, too. Biden routinely mocks Republicans who object to deficit spending, but celebrate the proceeds landing back at the home district.

Institutions matter when it comes to protecting and preserving limited government, and the primary American institution of separation of powers was supposed to have achieved that for us. Seemingly today though, the only “institutions” remaining capable of slowing or stopping debt-fueled spending are the pressures created by forcing the very type of shutdown at hand today, or by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. The nation will confront the latter again, too, in short order.

Read the full article on Forbes.