Thread by @BasedMikeLee

🧵We’re $33 trillion in debt because when Congress passes spending bills, each item is often tied to every other item—packaged together in one, gigantic bill. That bill is then presented to Congress on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, with no real chance to amend, improve, or cut.

The formula has been quite consistent for years: a tiny group of leaders — which I refer to as “The Law Firm of Schumer, McConnell, McCarthy & Jeffries” — privately negotiates a “draft” spending bill, some would say with more input from lobbyists than most members of Congress.

That bill is kept as if it were a highly classified secret until days (sometimes hours) before a spending deadline—that is, the moment the government will run out of money, resulting in a shutdown unless Congress passes another spending bill.

It’s not unusual for some powerful lobbyists to know more about what’s in the bill (prior to its release) than most members of Congress.

As soon as it’s been released, allowing most members of Congress to see it for the first time, lawmakers in both chambers are told “you’ve got to pass this — right now, without any changes — in order to avoid a shutdown.”

Lawmakers who want time to read and amend the bill—and to remove excessive or inappropriate items in the bill (or add new items wrongly omitted from it)—are told “that would be nice, but there just isn’t time for any of that.”

Lawmakers are also told essentially: “you’ve got two options here: you can vote for the bill, or you can vote against it. Yes or no. No amendments. It’s your choice. But know this: if you oppose the bill, you’ll risk causing a shutdown, and you’ll be blamed if that happens.”

Many members quickly acquiesce to these intimidation tactics, uttering (as if reciting a mantra), rehearsed phrases like “this bill isn’t perfect, and the process was totally unfair, but I (heroically) voted for it anyway because I care about the troops and hate shutdowns.”

Never mind that the bill spends too much money. Never mind that it funds countless things those voting “yes” publicly oppose. Never mind that, for all most of Congress knows, the bill might fund giant monuments to Benedict Arnold, King George III, and Milli Vanilli. They’re in.

Nobody wants a shutdown. Literally no one. It’s wrong for the Law Firm — whose members control the legislative schedules in both chambers — to pin the shutdown risk on rank-and-file lawmakers when the Law Firm itself has, quite deliberately, created that risk by its own delay.