The wheels are coming off of the U.S. government. As I write just before the Christmas holiday, the House Republicans under Speaker Mike Johnson tried their usual pre-Christmas trick of shoving a pork-laden continuing resolution spending bill down the public’s throat.

The bill would keep the government funded until mid-March and suspend the nation’s debt limit for two years. If a continuing resolution doesn’t pass, the government will shut, which may not be such a bad thing, really. But since no one wants to take the blame for that, congressmen filled the bill with an extra $110 billion in pork-barrel spending including, outrageously, a 40 percent raise to their own salaries. 

And that’s not all.

Rep. Thomas Massie

The debt limit, 

—Edward Welsch