The
hints that the extremists in the House Republican caucus weren't going to along with leaderships idea to avoid talk of a shutdown before Christmas have become aconcrete threat. Leadership announced earlier this week that they were going to have a continuing resolution ready just in case budget negotiations stalled by the December 13 deadline congress has imposed on itself. The current CR funds government through January 15, but Congress hoped to have at least the fundamentals of the budget hammered out before December recess.
Now that short-term CR that leadership said they'd use as a bridge to make sure there wasn't any threat of a shutdown has turned into a tool for the hardliners to threaten shutdown.
House conservatives are pushing to subvert a budget agreement being negotiated by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) that would mitigate some of the painful sequester cuts and remove the threats of government shutdown.
A letter signed by at least 18 conservative Republicans urges Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to bring up a "clean" continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government at the low sequester level when money expires on Jan. 15. The GOP signatories insist they want to avoid another confrontation and argue that Democrats would be responsible for a shutdown if they refuse to keep spending at levels established under current law.
"The Budget Control Act is the law of the land," the lawmakers write. "Our Democrat colleagues are now threatening to shut the government down in order to change that. We should not permit that to happen. Again, we encourage you to bring a clean CR to the floor."
How depressingly familiar. Take the government hostage and blame the Democrats. This time it's a little different, however, because there's a countervailing force in the Republican conference who adamantly do not want the sequester levels in any budget bill, continuing resolution or actual budget, because this round includes big hits to defense. So Democrats aren't alone in demanding a budget that's above the $967 billion sequester level, and the current talks between Murray and Ryan have it at about $1 trillion.
The crowd pushing for shutdown has been the crowd leading Boehner about by the nose, so far. Now it's a question of who's going to win out this time, and whether there will be real opposition to the extremists in the Republican caucus this round. And, of course, whether Boehner is capable of growing a spine.