What is the politics behind the U.S. budget and debt limit?

The requirement for immediate funding to help with recovery from the hurricanes would seem to be something that the Republicans would favor.

Not really, the Republicans are not all of one thought. There is a considerable faction in the House that wants relief funding tied to cuts elsewhere in the budget.

Similarly, it would make sense for Trump to hold off on his requirement that the budget contain funding for his wall project.

But Trump wants to leverage the need for funding the overall budget by threatening to veto if the wall is not funded. He would shut down the gov’t to get Congress to pay for the wall.

“Similarly, it would make sense for Trump to… ”

LOL. Hold it right there, @LostInParadise

Here’s the big picture.

Republicans, in general, believe is small government, low taxes, and people being responsible for themselves. They believe that private industry can do everything better than government, and that regulations always negatively affect business.

As a result, they want government to be poorly funded and have barely any regulation, so as to give private industry a chance to thrive. (Can you say Enron? Can you say financial crisis? How about EPA and not admitting to climate change?)

Republicans don’t want to fund welfare, food stamps, medicare, or anything socially good, because they feel that people should work and support themselves. Republicans don’t want to pay for the needs of what they call leeches.

So this budget, funding, spending limit brouhaha is all about imposing their rather hateful set of values on people, using artificial deadlines as leverage to force their philosophy on everyone else.

By the way, the republicans are hypocrites as well. Remember that Republicans tried to vote down money going to NY/NJ for Hurricane Sandy help, but they’re asking for lots of money for Harvey help in Republican Texas.

Republicans have moved away from the word “leeches”. They talk about Makers and Takers these days.