Quick(ish) take: Speaker Johnson's budget ladder

 How many years of bad luck do you incur for walking underneath a ladder?  As many as you deem unlucky after doing so.  Luck is little more than some combination of a quirk of random noise and observer bias, for whatever my favorite philosophers say about it under the capitalized form of "Fortune" in most translations.  Behold, the savior of the Republican Party's House caucus, in all his Jebuz-y form, and very Jebuz-y he is.  Mike Johnson.  Interesting guy.  We are nearing another fiscal cliff, because of course we are.  Welcome to the United States under divided government, 21st Century Edition.  McCarthy's doom-- his continuing resolution-- is about to end, so we face a government shutdown unless Mike Johnson does something, and here is his brilliant idea.  I mean, he could pass some appropriations bills, if we were in normal-verse, but we aren't.  He could pass another continuing resolution, if he wanted to get McCarthy'ed, so thread, meet needle.  He has invented a thing called a "ladder."  OK, the ladder was invented some time shortly after the wheel, but Johnson's estimate of the age of the Earth puts everything on a somewhat constrained timeline.  Regardless, his ladder is one of those fancy-schmancy ladders that Home Depot puts at the front of the aisle instead of in the middle of the aisle.  Burnished stainless steel, doohickeys and doodads and whatchamacallems, and not just one, but two steps, making it different from the stool on/in which the GOP usually steps.  See what I did there?  I'm very subtle.  Anywho, fund part of the government with one bill, then another part with another bill.  So... two bills instead of one.

Two CRs instead of one.  That's it.  I have now explained the totality of the plan.

It then kicks all of those cans down the road so that we do the whole thing again because long term, none of them have anything resembling a plan.

So why bother with the "ladder?"  Because to those of simple minds, it looks like something different.  There is zero functional difference between Johnson's "ladder" and what McCarthy did.  Suppose there is a widget you are considering selling me.  I offer you $20.  You say no.  So instead, I wave the $20 bill around in a complicated rhythmic gymnastics exercise while singing some Etta James song-- please, by all means, picture this precise image in your minds-- and you decide that this changes the value of the $20 bill.

Does my theatrical display change the value of the $20 bill?  No.  You were paid for the spectacle.  That additional compensation, plus the $20, allowed you to accept the payment for the widget.

What is happening?  Spectacle.  Nothing more.  Mike Johnson is providing spectacle.  His rhythmic gymnastics chops are no longer up to snuff, having gotten out of practice since his... conversion... and the only song he can sing is that Jason Aldean horror show.  Granted, that might get a vote or two, but his margins are thinner than a teenaged girl who watches TickTock all day before she falls down the inevitable, next rabbit hole, be it cutting, or...

Anyway, he needs a more elaborate dance.  Being no kind of dancer... anymore... this is all he has.  Is it a good dance?  No.  It is a stupid dance, and even I can tell that.  Will it work?  I do not know.  The important observation here is his need to perform it.  He cannot simply pass appropriations bills, because of course he cannot, and he cannot just pass another CR, which was how McCarthy wound up facing a motion to vacate.  So he must dance the dance of the busker.  Think of him as a kid on the street, with no other skills, no parents, begging for spare change.  This is all he has, and all he knows.

Pathetic, really.

How I got there from a fancy ladder at Home Depot, even I do not know.

Pierre Dørge & New Jungle Orchestra, "Smiling At The Foot Of The Ladder," from Johnny Lives.