Awfully nice of our US friends to try and make and feel better about our current bit of unpleasantness with our government here in the UK, but you really didn't need to bother....
Could a situation like this happen in the UK, do you think? Not voting through a budget would normally be a confidence issue, which would bring about the fall of the government, could we have a situation where that went on for a period of time without causing a new election?
I think it used to be that a government losing a vote on a budget would mean a general election but since the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 I believe there has to be an explicit vote of no confidence in the government (or a two thirds vote by MPs) to trigger an election.
Arguably since the Lib Dems detached confidence votes from normal business the constitution has been broken; previously the "May Deal" would have been a confidence vote and its failure would have collapsed the government.
While I don't think we'll have budget issues we're very likely to go the other way: use of emergency powers to suspend Parliamentary democracy. I believe some of the Tory party are already calling for this.
