Let’s assume for the purpose of argument that our friends at National Review are at least partly right in their analysis of the deal on the continuing resolution (CR) that’s to be voted on today in the House of Representatives (but see John McCormack’s post for some context). In their recommendation of a No vote, they seem to me misguided.
Even if the savings from the CR are a “pittance,” and the deal is “shot through with gimmicks and one-time savings;” even if it’s “a dog’s breakfast of budgetary legerdemain” that was “oversold and dependent on classic Washington budget trickery” and that embodies “business as usual”–even so, NR is wrong, I think, to conclude, “We’d vote ‘no,’ even if we understand the impulse to move on to more important matters and to avoid a leap into the dark that might include a politically damaging shutdown.”
