Remember when Republicans used to demand only "clean CRs" whenever Congress got ready to pass some emergency funding to keep the government running?
What's a CR? It's a "continuing resolution." What's a continuing resolution?
A CONTINUING RESOLUTION, also known as a "CR," continues funding for a program if the fiscal year ends without a new appropriation in place.
A "CR" provides temporary funding at current levels or less.
Well, every time one of those would come up, Republicans used to yowl that it had to be a "clean" CR. That is, one that had nothing but continuing funding in it. No policy. No additional spending. Just continuing funding. Period.
Of course, what they meant was that they wanted a clean CR so long as they were in the minority. When they win, and they can control what goes in a CR (at least in the House), well... uh... LOOK OVER THERE!
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says upcoming spending legislation will forbid the White House from using any federal dollars to pay to implement the health care law.
"I expect to see one way or the other, the product coming out of the House to speak to that and to preclude any funding to be used for [ObamaCare]," Cantor told reporters at his weekly press availability Tuesday.
Holy smokes! It's a political policy agenda in a CR! Whaddya know?
Now, Republicans will no doubt argue that this is "clean." After all, it's just reducing spending levels. But that just illustrates a little something about how they operate in general. CRs, traditionally, are about keeping the government running so that policy can be worked out elsewhere, under regular order. It's about providing the funding needed to keep things running, not withholding the funding things need to run in the first place.
Can they do it? Sure. It's not normal, and it's not likely to work the way they want it to. But they can try it. It still has to get through the Senate, and that's one problem. And if that somehow happens anyway, it has to be signed by the president, and that's another problem. But the House Republicans are happy to play around with that, since it sets up once again the hostage situation in which either the government shuts down for lack of a CR, or both the Senate and the White House surrender to them.
Now, it doesn't appear that even Cantor believes that'll work, since he's speaking only to what the House can pass. (Typical outcome in such situations: Senate amends the resolution to take that out, hands it back to the House as near to crunch time as possible, then adjourns and leaves town.) But it's another example of how the Tea Party agenda drives things for Republicans. After insisting for years that CRs were not about specific policy ends (general policy ends about overall spending notwithstanding), it quickly became obvious to them that the teabag set wouldn't sit still for that kind of eggheaded nonsense, even if the emptyheaded nonsense they preferred was doomed to failure. They prefer to fail loudly and then blame the eggheads. And the GOP's eggheads seem only too willing to oblige, lest they lose their lunch money.
So, here we go again.