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government shutdown
Musk's Threat to Primary Democrats Sparks Fresh Call for Ban on Super PACs
"If there's ever been a time to discuss serious campaign finance reform, it is now," one advocate said. "We are sliding into a new era of American oligarchy, and unless we take decisive action, the integrity of our democracy is at risk."
Dec 21, 2024
Trump-backer and richest person alive Elon Musk's role in almost forcing a government shutdown this week has revived calls for campaign finance reform, both nationally and within the Democratic Party.
As part of his campaign against a bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) that would have funded the government through March 14, Musk said that Republicans who voted for the bill should lose their seats during the 2026 midterms and that he would fund moderate primary challengers to Democrats in safe districts.
"The threat of limitless super-PAC spending from the world's wealthiest man could have proven enough to shut down the federal government days before Christmas," Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, told Common Dreams. "If there's ever been a time to discuss serious campaign finance reform, it is now. We are sliding into a new era of American oligarchy, and unless we take decisive action, the integrity of our democracy is at risk."
"How about the House add campaign finance reform to the CR so Republicans and Democrats alike can stop being so scared about what a billionaire man-child thinks before they vote on anything around here?"
Before the shutdown showdown, Musk was already incredibly influential in politics as a financial backer: He spent at least $277 million on the campaigns of President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans in 2024, including over $19 million on House races alone. Musk also spoke at Trump campaign rallies and was tapped by the president-elect to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency with fellow billionaire VivekRamaswamy.
However, his efforts to sink a spending bill revealed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday raised fresh concerns about his influence on elected politicians. His initial barrage of complaints against the CR—posted on his social media site X on Wednesday—precipitated a statement against the bill by Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance. Johnson never brought the bill up for a vote.
As part of his initial Wednesday tweet storm, Musk wrote, "Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!"
In response to Musk's threats, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, gave an impassioned speech on the House floor on Thursday.
"Can you image what the next two years are going to be like if every time that Congress works its will and then there's a tweet? Or from an individual who has no official portfolio, who threatens members on the Republican side with a primary and they succumb?" Neal said.
Musk, in response to a video of Neal's speech, tweeted, "Oh… forgot to mention that I'm also going to be funding moderate candidates in heavily Democrat districts, so that the country can get rid of those who don't represent them, like this jackass."
The statement sparked outrage and resistance from congressional Democrats.
"Everyone knows I'm always ready," Neal toldBusiness Insider, while the Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee tweeted out sarcastic memes.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezcalled for change on social media on Friday, writing, "How about the House add campaign finance reform to the CR so Republicans and Democrats alike can stop being so scared about what a billionaire man-child thinks before they vote on anything around here?"
Ultimately, after another Republican-led spending bill failed to clear the House on Thursday, Johnson introduced a paired-down CR that included key measures backed by Democrats such as relief for disaster victims and aid for farmers. That bill passed the House on Friday and the Senate early Saturday, narrowly averting a government shutdown that would have deprived hundreds of thousands of federal employees of paychecks over the holidays.
But Musk's intervention established a precedent "that should upset every American who believes in our democratic form of government," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said.
"Musk is getting carried away with himself, using his limitless fortune and his ownership of X to try to turn American politics to the authoritarian right," former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on his Substack on Friday.
"Wealth inequality is rapidly undermining our democracy," Reich continued. "Musk is the poster boy for a wealth tax."
Musk's primary challenge to Neal bolstered calls for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to ban super-PAC spending in its primaries.
"Elon Musk, worth $455 billion, spent $277 million to buy the Republican Party," Sanders staff director Warren Gunnels wrote on social media on Friday. "He has also pledged to replace Democrats in primaries with those who represent his special interests. If the DNC doesn't ban super PACs in primaries, what will this picture look like in 2 years?"
Reich also argued that "the DNC must bar dark money and limit campaign contributions in all Democratic primary campaigns. The incoming chair of the DNC, selected on February 1, should make this a key part of their strategy for the 2026 midterms and beyond."
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After Trump and Musk's Attempt to Sink Deal, House Votes to Avert Government Shutdown
The final spending bill, also approved by the Senate, includes long-awaited disaster relief and excludes Trump's last-minute request to raise the debt ceiling.
Dec 21, 2024
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill 366-34 on Friday night to continuing funding the government, averting the shutdown that loomed after Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump sank a bipartisan spending agreement earlier in the week.
The Senate then approved the continuing resolution 85-11 early Saturday, which will keep the government funded at current levels through March 14. It also included the disaster relief and aid to farmers that were central pieces of the original bipartisan legislation and excluded Trump's last-minute demand to raise the debt ceiling.
However, it was significantly smaller than the original bill—slashed from 1,500 to 118 pages—and the cuts included healthcare expansion for older Americans, a plan to lower prescription drug prices, and an apprenticeship program for young people.
"The precedent that has been set today in Congress should upset every American who believes in our democratic form of government."
"Tonight, in a victory for the American people and a loss for Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the House passed legislation to keep the government open, provide $100 billion in critical disaster relief to communities across America, and fund $10 billion in aid for struggling farmers and ranchers," outgoing Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash) said in a statement.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also celebrated the averted shutdown.
"We stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government and crashing the economy," he wrote on Bluesky. "The American people have won this round. Far-right billionaires have lost. The struggle continues in the new year."
The bill's passage capped a whirlwind few days in the U.S. House after Musk—the richest man in the world whom Trump has appointed to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency—spent all of Wednesday tweeting against the original spending package released by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday. After Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance joined Musk's crusade against the bill, Johnson refrained from bringing it to the floor.
Instead, he attempted to pass another bill on Thursday that would have raised the debt limit through 2027, in accordance with Trump's request. That bill was voted down 174-235, with only two Democrats voting in favor and 38 Republicans rejecting it. Johnson then briefly considered passing individual bills Friday morning before introducing the proposal that finally passed with the support of 170 Republicans and every Democrat except Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who voted present.
"We forced President-elect Trump and Shadow President Elon Musk to back down from the 11th-hour demand to pass a suspension of the debt ceiling, a move that would have paved the way for a Trump Tax Scam 2.0 that would once again send trillions of dollars to the billionaires and giant corporations while cutting Social Security and Medicare for working people and poor people to pay for those tax cuts to the wealthiest," Jayapal said. "Democrats forced Republicans to back down and, when we enter a Republican trifecta, it will be on Republicans to deliver all the votes for such a scam. Democrats won’t bail them out—on that or any of their policies that cater to the wealthiest in America at the expense of working people and struggling Americans."
The passage of the disaster aid was celebrated by more than 50 storm and fire survivors who had sent a delegation to Congress last week to share their stories and demand that Congress fully fund recovery efforts, as federal dollars for relief have been delayed by over two years.
"We commend Republicans and Democrats for prioritizing disaster aid—this is how it should be," said Amanda Devecka-Rinear, co-founder of an organization of Superstorm Sandy survivors. "But the maneuvering we just witnessed, including an unelected billionaire holding disaster aid hostage via the social media platform that he owns, once again underscores how precarious the reality is for disaster survivors in America. And we will continue to stand together to get our communities home and whole."
While Devecka-Rinear said the funding "represents a significant step forward," she added that it was "not the finish line."
"Stopgap measures like this cannot continue to be the norm," she said. "We need a disaster recovery system that families can successfully navigate. Survivors deserve reliable, sustainable, and permanent funding."
Zoe Middleton, the associate director for just climate resilience for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, also called for a permanent disaster-relief solution.
"Communities need and deserve robustly funded recovery programs to get back on their feet in the weeks and months following a disaster," Middleton said in a statement. "Allowing funding for short-term relief to run dry and making communities wait on long-term recovery assistance can push families into debt or leave them homeless and can also cause lasting economic scars on local economies."
She continued: "People across the country are losing their homes and livelihoods to the climate crisis while fossil fuel companies continue to rake in profits. In addition to passing this short-term, stopgap funding, Congress should invest in measures that prepare climate-vulnerable communities for disasters before they strike and permanently authorize Community Development Block Grants to ensure people aren't forced into desperate straits after they've experienced the worst."
The bill's passage also sets the stage for the coming year, in which Republicans will control the presidency, House, and Senate—foreshadowing future fights and revealing the extent of Musk's influence over the future president and Republican lawmakers.
During closed-door negotiations, Republican House members on Friday shared a slide showing a draft agreement to swap $2.5 trillion in spending cuts for a $1.5 trillion debt-ceiling increase next year. Cuts could target essential programs including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and federal nutrition assistance.
"Republicans are already taking cues from Elon Musk and his DOGE commission and clearing the deck to ram through giant tax giveaways for the ultra-wealthy," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens said in a statement. "Their plans for the new year are crystal clear: Cut trillions from Social Security, Medicare, and other critical programs to pay for their own massive tax cuts."
Jayapal said that Democrats would need "spines of steel to oppose all of the ways in which Republicans inflict cruelty on America's working people and poor people who are still struggling to get by and deserve so much more."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who voted against the continuing resolution, lamented key provisions that had been cut from the spending bill after Musk and Trump's opposition. These included measures to expand primary healthcare, mental healthcare, substance abuse counseling, and nutrition programs for older Americans; boost vocational training for 100,000 young people; and attempt to regulate Pharmacy Benefit Managers, who inflate prescription drug costs.
"These important proposals, negotiated by Democrats and Republicans for months and agreed to by both sides of the aisle, were stripped from this bill by an unelected billionaire named Elon Musk," Sanders said. "Musk, the richest person on Earth, threatened to use his fortune to unseat any member of Congress who would have voted for the original bipartisan legislation."
Sanders concluded: "The precedent that has been set today in Congress should upset every American who believes in our democratic form of government. It appears that from now on no major legislation can be passed without the approval of the wealthiest person in this country. That's not democracy, that's oligarchy."
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Call for $2.5 Trillion in Cuts Proves GOP Wants to 'Steal Our Benefits'
"Nearly 60% of mandatory spending is for Medicare and Social Security," noted one expert. "If they don't touch those, they'd have to cut Medicaid to the bone."
Dec 20, 2024
With a potential government shutdown just hours away, House Republican leaders displayed a slide during a closed-door GOP conference meeting on Friday showing a draft agreement proposing $2.5 trillion in net mandatory spending cuts in exchange for raising the U.S. debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion at some point next year.
The slide was seen as further confirmation that Republicans are seriously eyeing cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and federal nutrition assistance—programs that fall under the mandatory spending category.
Though by law Social Security cannot be cut in the reconciliation process that Republicans are planning to use to bypass the Senate filibuster and Democratic opposition in the upcoming Congress, other key programs including Medicare and Medicaid could be vulnerable to the GOP's massive proposed austerity spree.
"The ONLY WAY to cut $2.5 trillion in spending is by slashing Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid," the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works (SSW) wrote on social media in response to the slide. "Republicans want to steal our benefits to pay for their billionaire tax cuts."
Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, wrote that the slide "is a Republican commitment to cut Medicare, Social Security, or veterans' benefits (all to make way for new tax cuts for the rich)."
"There's no way to make this math work otherwise," he added. "Their promise is to cut $2.5 trillion in mandatory spending. Nearly 60% of mandatory spending is for Medicare and Social Security. If they don't touch those, they'd have to cut Medicaid to the bone."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned that the draft agreement means "Republicans are plotting to cut healthcare for seniors and veterans to grease the wheels for tax cuts for giant corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk."
For weeks, Republicans have been discussing potential cuts and sweeping changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—including the addition of new work requirements—to help pay for a fresh round of tax cuts that would largely benefit the richest Americans and large corporations.
Republicans working with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—the billionaire co-chairs of the soon-to-be-created Department of Government Efficiency—have also signaled that Social Security and Medicare cuts are on the table even after President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on protecting the programs.
"Republicans have made their plan for the new year crystal clear: Ram through massive tax giveaways for the ultra-wealthy and corporations, and pay for them by shaking down programs and agencies that working families rely on," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens wrote in a Rolling Stoneop-ed on Friday. "And they're putting unelected and unaccountable oligarchs—Musk and Ramaswamy—in charge of deciding how much pain Americans will have to tolerate so that the rich can get richer."
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