More House Anarchy = Likelihood of Government Shutdown

September 13, 2013
|In Policy & Health Reform
|By GHG Advisors

So a week ago the conventional wisdom was that the prospects of an extremist-induced government shutdown on October 1 were infinitesimal.  Not anymore.  Must. Stop. Underestimating. Wingnuts.

The House was scheduled to vote Wednesday on a bill to fund the government after September 30. Right-wing extremists have been demanding that the House refuse to continue funding the government unless Senate Democrats and President Obama agree to defund Obamacare. Rational Republicans in both House and Senate have pleaded that this approach is doomed and would damage the GOP brand to force a shutdown. To mollify the wingnuts, Speaker Boehner instead hatched this whopper: let’s pass continued government funding — attached to a separate bill defunding Obamacare, which of course can be surgically excised in the Senate.

But some extremists are still saying defund-Obamcare-or-else, and it takes less than 20 of them to defect to cause Boehner serious problems.  This is what gives this tiny, noisy cabal big leverage.

The vote delay means several things:

  • A government shutdown is much more likely now.  With funding expired on September 30, the calendar is not our friend. One Republican aide privately raged to the New Yorker of the extremists, “They’re screwing us.”
  • Boehner’s plan would continue government funding, but would lock in sequestration across-the-board cuts to domestic programs, while likely easing cuts on the Pentagon in light of the Syria mess. This approach virtually ensures Boehner won’t get a single Democratic vote, and therefore, Boehner needs every last wingnut out there.
  • Debt ceiling hostage-taking now appears more likely, too. The big “bait and switch” of the year has been Boehner trying to dissuade the extremists on their government shutdown strategy on one hand, while offering another go at defunding ObamaCare with the debt ceiling.  The problem is we’re now going to hit the ceiling in mid-October, two months earlier than expected, and the calendar just effectively called Boehner’s bluff.  Hence, the new approach of punting ObamaCare defunding to the Senate.  Another default on the debt would be disastrous for the economy, but that didn’t stop the wingnuts two years ago.  House leaders don’t seem to have a clue how they’ll handle the debt ceiling now.
The answer to this conundrum is both easy and inconceivable at the same time: Boehner needs to form a coalition with Democrats and a few rational Republicans to lift the debt ceiling. But it’s inconceivable because it would usher in a coup attempt in the House and possibly in the Senate, and a death spiral for the GOP as we know it.  But then again, since the election, lots of things previously inconceivable have come to life as our government approaches ungovernability.
I’ve gotta stop underestimating the right wing when it comes to ObamaCare.
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