POLITICS FEBRUARY 24, 2011
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Up until now, a government shutdown because of a stalemate over the budget was a strong possibility, but it didn’t appear inevitable. That’s because House Speaker John Boehner stands to be badly hurt by the train wreck a shutdown would be, and I’m confident—from what he’s said and because he was around the last time it happened—that he realizes it. But his decision last week during House consideration of the must-pass spending bill to open up the floor to unlimited amendments reframed the issue in a way that gives Boehner much less room for compromise.
Just to recap the mechanics here: The Democrats last year (inexplicably) failed to pass the appropriations bills that would keep the government running through the current fiscal year, opting instead to pass a temporary measure that runs out on March 4. Unlike the debt ceiling, this one is a hard deadline. If Congress and the president don't act, the government will shut down. National parks will close; most federal employees and most of the vast hordes of government contractors won’t get paid for the duration of the shutdown; and applications for visas, passports, Social Security, and veterans’ benefits won’t get processed. A few days of that is an inconvenience. A couple of weeks, as Republicans found out in the mid-’90s, is a disaster.
A shutdown can be avoided if all sides agree to pass a short-term funding bill, lasting a month or less, while negotiations take place on the final measure. But Boehner has said he wouldn’t pass a “clean” extension that would keep current funding levels and policy in place during those talks—almost certainly because he doesn’t have the votes for it. And last week’s amendment frenzy made finding the votes even harder
When Republicans brought the funding bill to the House floor, Boehner allowed for the introduction of hundreds of amendments, instead of following the usual procedure of having the House Rules Committee screen out most amendments. For Republican members of the House, it was a great opportunity to fulfill campaign promises by authoring amendments, many of which were approved, on all sorts of policy issues. Indeed, instead of just raising or lowering spending levels for federal agencies, these amendments prohibit the government from using any funds to carry out laws that House Republicans don’t like. So, for example, the funding bill now tells the EPA that it cannot regulate greenhouse gases; it tells the FCC that it may not implement net- neutrality regulations; it cuts funding from Planned Parenthood; and, perhaps most critically, it blocks money needed to carry out health care reform.
This means that, instead of sending the Senate a bill carefully tailored for a major budget fight, the House has delivered one containing a hodgepodge of policy fights. Consequently, it will be much harder to find common ground before time runs out to prevent a shutdown.
If the only question was about funding levels, which was always expected to be a battleground, then it’s doubtful a compromise would’ve been impossible. The budget debate might have gone to the brink, maybe even shutting the government down for a few days before a deal was reached. In theory, however, it’s just not that difficult to cut a deal between one side that wants X dollars and another side that wants Y dollars spent on, more or less, the same set of programs. Granted, many Republicans campaigned on cutting $100 billion from federal spending right away, and the final compromise total wouldn’t get them there. But, whatever the government would spend for the remainder of FY 2011 would inevitably be less than it would have been had the Democrats retained control of the House. So the GOP would have been able to call the final spending total some kind of victory.
But, when it comes to the policy fights over health care reform, environmental regulations, Planned Parenthood, and other issues, there aren’t partial victories available. Democrats won’t give in, and House Republicans won’t either, at least not easily. To take just one example: If you’re a Republican congressman, once you’ve said that allowing funds to go to Planned Parenthood is basically just funding abortion (even if it’s not), how do you reconcile a “yes” vote on a compromise bill that allows funding for that organization? (Indeed, will strongly pro-life members of Congress even be willing to vote for a two-week extension if it fails to prohibit Planned Parenthood funding?)
Boehner had the chance to make this battle about just spending levels. In that case, a shutdown could still have happened. But, instead, the speaker allowed the fight to become about so many policy issues that it’s hard to keep track of them all. He can neither win nor abandon the amendments he let pass, meaning an ugly shutdown is all but certain.
Jonathan Bernstein blogs at A Plain Blog About Politics.
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9 comments
So why did he do it? A couple of possibilities. One, he fears he would lose his job if he opposed the "committed conservatives" (a neutral term) in his conference. Two, he feared a primary challenge in 2012 from the committed conservatives. Three, the inmates have taken over the asylum and, being powerless, he decided to join them. Four, he let the committed conservatives have their way to show how dangerous they are to his own party's status as majority party and thereby weaken them and enhance his own power in the conference. Five, he is dumber than a box of rocks. I'm an observer of politics but I have no idea which of the five possibilites listed is the most likely. Does Bernstein?
- rayward
February 24, 2011 at 7:51am
Very good comment, rayward, I especially like the "asylum" one. Another possibility is one of the Koch brothers called Boehnor and requested that he allow all the ammendments -- but that ties in to your #1 and #2 above, I guess. And very good analysis -- too bad nobody said this at the time.
- AllanL5
February 24, 2011 at 8:54am
Excellent comments, but there is another possible reason for Boehner's recklessness--the Republicans believe that the voting public will blame the Democrats for the government shutdown and that the more difficult they can make it for the Democrats to agree to a compromise the more likely they are to reap the rewards of the public anger in the next election. After all, they benefited greatly from misdirected public anger in the last election. Of course the success of this strategy depends on either the ignorance of the voting public or the Democrats failure to educate the voting public regarding the actual cause of the breakdown. I lean towards the former explanation, as the ignorance of the American public is difficult to overstate.
- spd1955
February 24, 2011 at 10:33am
rayward, I think #5 (Boehner is stupid) is not the explanation; I think he's a very good pol. I don't think an actual primary challenge is all that likely (although I don't really know anything about his district)... So I think it's about internal House politics, but I'm not sure if it's a combination of #1 & 3, which are about the conference forcing his hand, or #4, with him trying to outmaneuver the crazies in the GOP conference. One thing he did get out of the open rule was that even larger cuts were defeated; if he wants to cut a deal, it might help him to be able to point out that the House's position was really the farthest the House could go. All of that seems plausible to me. The other piece of it is that Boehner did pledge he'd use more open procedures, and that could be part of it.
- Jonathan Bernstein
February 24, 2011 at 11:38am
For some odd reason I like a guy who smokes cigarettes; don't really know why, since I have never smoked cigarettes, except it may indicate a willingness to take risks. Which brings me to my point, risk. I actually don't see much political risk to the Republicans of a government shut-down; after all, if the country can forgive the Republicans for the fiasco that was the GWB administration, they can forgive them for this little bit of mischief. The bigger risk is the timing: a gathering storm of international political unrest, a potential for a major spike in the price of oil, a growing threat of an international trade war, and the perception of a potential for default on US government bonds. The perfect storm. On the other hand, if the Speaker has quit smoking, never mind.
- rayward
February 24, 2011 at 1:39pm
So why did the Dems not pass a bill last year?? Stupider vs Stupidest? It didn't take much smarts to see March 4th coming at that time.
- drofnats1
February 24, 2011 at 3:32pm
They probably didn't want to give the Republicans any more ammunition than absolutely necessary before the election, they were probably dealing with intransigence from within as well. Whatever the reason, it does force the Republicans to govern; of course, for the scheme to work they have to make sure the Republicans are the ones who get hanged for it when they fail to govern.
- GSpinks
February 24, 2011 at 5:10pm
Bernstein: "The Democrats last year (inexplicably) failed to pass the appropriations bills that would keep the government running through the current fiscal year, opting instead to pass a temporary measure that runs out on March 4." Its it inexplicable? Is it possible that Democrats foresaw that Republicans would have an undisciplined Tea Party base that would force their party to pass an ideologically-laden budget bill with no chance in the Senate and show their inability to govern? Or is that giving Democrats way too much credit?
- dsimon
February 25, 2011 at 12:37am
It seems that the entire Republican Party history from Reagan until now, is a triumph of the Unintended Consequence. They SAY they want one thing, then their CHOICES bring them something else. So while I'm sure Bohner doesn't WANT a Government shutdown, his CHOICES to "do the right thing" and let all the looneys in his party make whatever cuts they want, has the "Unintended Consequence" of making the shutdown virtually inevitable. So either they're more Machiavellian and sinister than I give them credit for, or they simply misjudge what Moderates conclude are perfectly predictable outcomes of their choices. Whichever is true, they certainly spend a LOT of time creating crises.
- AllanL5
February 25, 2011 at 7:54am