However, the one thing that I believe is crystal clear is that no matter who could possibly become the next Speaker of the House you're going to hate him because of some standards that no elected official in Washington D.C. is willing to meet yet.

The reasons why I laid out right here in my post, Get Ready to Hate Whoever the Next Speaker Is.

From that offering, I go into why continuing resolutions won't be changing anytime soon.

The End of Continuing Resolutions

This is something so common sense that it's hard to believe that we're still talking about it in 2023. 

However, we are discussing a body politic in Washington, DC, that treats common sense like sunlight treats a vampire. They seemingly run from it as fast as they can, and this is not just Democrats but some Republicans as well as this is a common theme among all of them.

I know there was a moment within my lifetime when individual appropriation bills were still being done, and we weren't having the hodgepodge of funding bills on top of funding bills to get something passed to keep everything moving. But this ended a very long time ago and there's a reason why.

Individual Appropriations are much easier to scrutinize than having to go through 1,500 or 2,000 pages of something dumped on you at 2:00 in the morning.

Now this is in my opinion only my opinion is why 9 percent of Congress is totally happy with this because stuffed inside those bills are things that they can go back home to the taxpayer and say, "Look at what I did." Ultimately every congressperson is judged on how much bacon they bring back from the slaughterhouse of Washington, DC.

Now the reason why this will not change under the new speaker is because of a little process that is hardly ever talked about called reconciliation. 

The act as defined by the Congressional Budget Office:

Budget reconciliation is an expedited process for considering bills that would implement policies embodied in a Congressional budget resolution. Since 1980, the first year the process took place, many laws have been enacted through budget reconciliation—for example, the 2017 tax act (Public Law 115-97) and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (P.L. 117-2). This page shows CBO’s publications related to the reconciliation process that has occurred since the fall of 2021, pursuant to the budget resolution for fiscal year 2022 (S. Con. Res. 14). That process culminated in the enactment of P.L. 117-169 on August 22, 2022.

The Senate loves reconciliations and currently a Democrat from New York, Chuck Schumer, is the Senate Majority Leader. So whatever bill or resolution comes out of the House has to be reconciled in conference with the Senate, and they are not going to move off this process. 

So you can have a government shutdown, and I'm not one of these people who is going to fret that federal employees are not going to be able to do the work of their overlords in Washington, DC, and cry over it. However, I have been through a couple of government shutdowns, and the media does a wonderful job of painting the Republicans as the bad guys. So no matter who is the Speaker—Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise, Donald Trump, or any name you want to throw in there—they will be forced to do this process, and if they decide not to, they will get a noose wrapped around their neck politically and the independents in this country will blame the GOP.

I also go into why nothing will be done about the $33 trillion in debt because the conversation that would need to be had with the American people is not one many politicians are willing to have, and I'm pretty sure no one who's running for speaker today would want to have that conversation.

If you want to test this theory ask your local Congressperson or Senator what actually needs to be done with Social Security and Medicare to tackle the $33 trillion in debt. I guarantee you 99.9 percent of those elected officials will give you a paper-thin answer and look to change the subject to what kind of ice cream Joe Biden likes.

Now, I'm not picking on any Congressperson necessarily from either party. The reason why they don't want to have that conversation is because you the American people will get very upset about what the remedy is. We have allowed these people to spend on the Futures dime with no check and balance And the fat lady is tuning up to sing.

Ultimately, we allowed this to happen and now, as we started out this Tuesday, there are seven people vying to be Speaker with the number dropping quickly once the vote started.

Last Friday, we had nine that had expressed interest but over the weekend two people dropped out and all those running have committed to supporting whomever the conference picks as thier choice. This may help in solidifying the process but at this point who knows.

House now starting its first ballot for Speaker behind closed doors. 7 candidates still vying to be Speaker

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 24, 2023

I hope that Bryon Donalds from Florida gets the nod, not necessarily for any other reason than I think AOC has a crush on him and it would throw her off her game.

Read: AOC Has Some Thoughts on Who Should Run for Speaker and She Might Be Crushing

I'm not sorry if you don't have a sense of humor about these things folks. You have to find some levity in all this or it will drive you insane. We might know by later this afternoon if the white smoke rises from the Capitol to see if a new Speaker has been selected or if black smoke arises and a fire alarm needs to be pulled.

In the meantime check out some of these posts from my colleagues to bring you up to speed.

Read Also:

It's Time for GOP Holdouts to Stop Blaming Matt Gaetz for the Chaos and Elect a Speaker

Jim Jordan's Fall From Grace: A Wake-Up Call for the Anti-Establishment Right?

Where Has Matt Gaetz Gone Since His Motion to Vacate the Chair?