Well that's just peachy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
In the aftermath of the October 2013 government shutdown -- as each side took stock of its gains and losses -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave one of the saga’s more memorable quotes.
“One of my favorite sayings is an old Kentucky saying, ‘There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.' The first kick of the mule was in 1995; the second one was the last 16 days,” he said when asked whether the Republican Party would bring the government to a halt again. “A government shutdown is off the table. We’re not going to do it.”
The regret in those words reflected the GOP’s mood at the time. The shutdown had backfired, leaving the president’s health care law intact and hurting the GOP brand. And in order to end it, McConnell and other Senate Republicans had been forced to swoop in at the last minute and cast difficult votes to clean up the House’s mess.
But political calculations change over time. Ten months later, the notion that the government could be pushed toward a shutdown is something McConnell is leaning into rather than running away from.
In an interview with Politico, the Minority Leader pledged that if Republicans took control of the Senate after the 2014 election, he would attach policy riders to spending bills that would either encumber or fully restrict the president’s bureaucratic leeway. These riders could come in different forms and scopes, from abortion policy to the implementation of health care reform. So it’s impossible to know just how confrontational McConnell wants to be. But Politico’s report suggests he would be willing to see the standoff all the way to a shutdown. - Huffington Post, 8/20/14
Here's some more info:
http://www.politico.com/...
But asked about the potential that his approach could spark another shutdown, McConnell said it would be up to the president to decide whether to veto spending bills that would keep the government open.
Obama “needs to be challenged, and the best way to do that is through the funding process,” McConnell said. “He would have to make a decision on a given bill, whether there’s more in it that he likes than dislikes.”
A “good example,” McConnell said, is adding restrictions to regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. Adding riders to spending bills would change the “behavior of the bureaucracy, which I think has been the single biggest reason this recovery has been so tepid,” he said.
“He could,” McConnell said calmly when asked if such a tactic would prompt Obama to veto must-pass appropriations bills. “Yeah, he could.”
If Republicans gain a Senate majority, it will surely be a thin one. If McConnell wants to accomplish much of anything, he’ll have to strike a delicate balance between courting some Democrats while adhering to the demands of his right flank hungry for conservative legislation like gutting Obamacare.
To pass a budget, as McConnell is promising, he would have to hold together a conference that would include conservatives like Cruz and moderates like Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. He’d likely need Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s help to pass major legislation, even though he’s been at war with the Nevada Democrat, who blames McConnell for causing historic gridlock.
There would also be pressure from the handful of Republican senators planning a White House run, not to mention GOP senators running for reelection in blue and purple states like New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Ohio — an election map that gives Democrats a major advantage in winning a majority all over again in 2016.
McConnell is well aware of the difficulties ahead should he finally achieve his political dream.
“Being leader is sort of like being the groundskeeper to a cemetery: Everybody is under you but nobody is listening,” he said with a big laugh, crediting Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander for coming up with the line. - Politico, 8/20/14
One has to ask what McConnell's real endgame is with this move. Here's what it's really all about:
http://www.courier-journal.com/...
McConnell is being challenged by Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky's secretary of state, and polls show the race is close.
The McConnell strategy is to try to tie Grimes to Obama and to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. McConnell is reminding voters that if she is elected to the Senate, Grimes would be voting to keep Reid as leader.
For her part, Grimes is depicting McConnell as a Washington insider who has lost touch with Kentucky and who has been primarily responsible for the dysfunction in Congress.
Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson told Politico: "In no uncertain terms, Sen. McConnell is saying 'elect me so I can shut down the government again.' That's shocking to middle-class Americans...but business as usual for Sen. McConnell, the self-declared 'proud guardian of gridlock.'" - Louisville Courier-Journal, 8/20/14
But really, it's to distract voters from this:
http://thehill.com/...
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has touted his work for Kentucky farmers on the campaign trail, but back in Washington, he has a trend of skipping out on Senate Agriculture Committee hearings for events unrelated to his home state.
He’s already been hit by his Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes for missing every Agriculture Committee hearing since 2009. While it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to miss the occasional hearing — particularly members of leadership, who have varied demands that take them away from their committee duties — a review of committee hearings and McConnell’s public schedule reveals many times he’s missed hearings but has still managed to make time for media appearances or meetings on issues far removed from Kentucky’s farmers.
McConnell's team points to his work behind-the-scenes on issues that are significant to local farmers and other Kentuckians as evidence he's been effective, and while spokesman John Ashbrook didn't dispute the absences, he argued McConnell “uses his clout as Leader to help Kentucky farmers in ways that go well beyond committee Q & A.”
He touted, as an example, McConnell’s work on the hemp amendment, which he said "open[ed] up new opportunities for Kentucky agriculture jobs."
“And the year before [that] he used his position to secure a one year extension of farm programs protecting Kentucky families from a huge spike in milk prices and providing certainty for Kentucky farmers ahead of a new planting season," Ashbrook added in an email to The Hill. "That same year he also won a permanent reduction of the death tax."
But the details are sure to draw scrutiny as Grimes and McConnell face off at the Kentucky Farm Bureau forum on Wednesday.
On Dec. 1, 2011, McConnell missed a committee hearing addressing “Continued Oversight of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” at which a number of his Republican colleagues spoke and asked questions of the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
That day, however, he did find time to appear on conservative commentator Sean Hannity’s talk show to criticize President Obama and Senate Democrats on issues ranging from passage of the Keystone XL oil pipeline to government spending.
On June 23 of that year, McConnell was absent from a hearing on “Eliminating Waste in the Farm Bill,” where agricultural industry and administration representatives took questions from senators about a bill that routinely draws criticism from conservatives, who see the price tag as too large and its government subsidies mismanaged.
Presumably that day, the Senate minority leader was in talks with other congressional leaders over a deal to raise the debt limit, but he also made time to speak on the Senate floor in the morning and appear on Fox News at night to criticize what he said was Obama’s lack of leadership on the debt-limit negotiations. - The Hill, 8/20/14
But hey, McConnell wanting another government shutdown gives Democrats more ammunition:
http://www.thewire.com/...
The only thing that would make congressional Democrats happier than a Republican attempt to impeach President Obama is if Republicans force another government shutdown.
So when Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) raised the specter of a government shutdown fight if Republicans retake the Senate in November, Democrats rejoiced.
And by rejoiced, we mean they feigned outrage.
Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, rapidly released a statement accusing McConnell of "reckless gamesmanship."
"Once again, we’re seeing that Republicans see government shutdowns as partisan tools, not economic disasters. It’s exactly this kind of reckless gamesmanship that led to the last shutdown and is leaving the door open for another at the end of September. For the sake of our economy, this Republican Congress needs to take shutdowns off the table once and for all.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's chief spokesman, Adam Jentleson, chimed in on Twitter.
- The Wire, 8/20/14
Well I say game on Mitch. Thanks for giving people another reason to vote you out of office. Lets make sure we're ready to defeat McConnell by donating and getting involved with Alison Lundergan Grimes' (D. KY) campaign:
http://alisonforkentucky.com/