The Morning Plum: GOP leaders reap the whirlwind
By Greg Sargent, WashPost, Updated: August 2, 2013
Is there any bill funding the government — at any level of spending — that Republicans alone can pass out of the House at this point?
Congress has gone home for recess after a series of botched votes that are cause for deep pessimism about the future. The basic problem here is not hard to divine. The Senate GOP filibuster of the transportation bill yesterday, and the House GOP decision to yank its version of the same the day before that, confirm that Republicans may not be able to pass a spending bill at sequester levels, even as they won’t support one at higher spending levels, either.
As multiple reports detail this morning — Lori Montgomery’s piece gets the framing exactly right – the bill that spends at sequester levels alienates moderate Republicans who balk at specific spending cuts. Meanwhile, Republicans can’t accept higher spending levels because … the goal of keeping spending as low as possible has become a moral crusade, a higher calling, that can never be questioned, even if they are not willing or able to say how they would accomplish this.
If this sounds crazy, that’s because it is. But this craziness has a cause. Republican leaders have nurtured it for years, and now they are stuck in a trap of their own creation.
As I noted here yesterday, by refusing to definitively shoot down the idea that Obamacare should be defunded through a government shutdown confrontation, John Boehner and GOP leaders continue to feed the delusion that this could happen. This could make it harder for Republican leaders later because conservatives — thanks also to years of the GOP leadership’s nurturing of Obamacare repeal fantasies — could be even less likely to accept any bill funding the government that doesn’t also defund Obamcare.
(More here.)
Is there any bill funding the government — at any level of spending — that Republicans alone can pass out of the House at this point?
Congress has gone home for recess after a series of botched votes that are cause for deep pessimism about the future. The basic problem here is not hard to divine. The Senate GOP filibuster of the transportation bill yesterday, and the House GOP decision to yank its version of the same the day before that, confirm that Republicans may not be able to pass a spending bill at sequester levels, even as they won’t support one at higher spending levels, either.
As multiple reports detail this morning — Lori Montgomery’s piece gets the framing exactly right – the bill that spends at sequester levels alienates moderate Republicans who balk at specific spending cuts. Meanwhile, Republicans can’t accept higher spending levels because … the goal of keeping spending as low as possible has become a moral crusade, a higher calling, that can never be questioned, even if they are not willing or able to say how they would accomplish this.
If this sounds crazy, that’s because it is. But this craziness has a cause. Republican leaders have nurtured it for years, and now they are stuck in a trap of their own creation.
As I noted here yesterday, by refusing to definitively shoot down the idea that Obamacare should be defunded through a government shutdown confrontation, John Boehner and GOP leaders continue to feed the delusion that this could happen. This could make it harder for Republican leaders later because conservatives — thanks also to years of the GOP leadership’s nurturing of Obamacare repeal fantasies — could be even less likely to accept any bill funding the government that doesn’t also defund Obamcare.
(More here.)
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