There are Republicans out there who are not so secretly hoping that House Speaker Paul Ryan will ride to their rescue this summer, and somehow leave a brokered convention the new Republican nominee for president. Those people are apparently not paying a lot of attention to the fact that he can't even control a few dozen maniacs in the House. This former Budget Committee chairman and his leadership team is failing at coming up with a budget, even though he inherited an already voted on and approved blue-print from his predecessor.
House leaders have been trying for weeks to find a way to ease conservatives’ concerns about the added spending by presenting different proposals for cutting funds in parts of the budget not covered by the appropriations legislation.
The latest proposal unveiled Thursday would allow members to vote on a stand alone measure that would cut $30 billion from mandatory spending programs like food stamps, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid before moving on to a separate vote on a budget that maintains the 2015 deal to increase overall spending to $1.07 trillion for the annual appropriations bills.
Leaders hoped the two-step process would give conservatives some space to back down from threats to block the critical spending outline, but the proposal was met with a new set of difficult demands.
He's handing the maniacs Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid cuts on a silver platter—in an election year!—and it's not enough for them. They want—and are demanding—more. Specifically, they want "more than just a show vote on legislation that has no future in the Senate where Democrats will likely filibuster any spending cuts." Which is an impossible thing, unless they can convince Mitch McConnell to go nuclear in the Senate, and get rid of the filibuster. Which is not going to happen, considering McConnell already has enough on his hands with the Supreme Court fight. Combine that fight with cutting Social Security and Medicare, in an election year? There is not 51 Republican votes in the Senate to go there.
And still Paul Ryan either can't or won't break that news to the problem children and move on to pass some spending bills. Instead, he's letting this fight draw out and the maniacs gain steam. Before he knows it, he's going to be dealing with a government shutdown fight, just before everyone goes home for the fall's last campaign push. And they want him as the standard-bearer for the party?