Boehner and Cantor: House "leadership"
Unbelievably, yes, this Congress
can actually get worse.
House Republican leaders might not have the votes to pass a stopgap farm bill this week. [...]
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenants, wanting to avoid an intraparty battle on a $957 billion five-year bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee, scheduled a vote on a one-year farm program extension that includes drought relief provisions.
But aides and lobbyists closely monitoring the issue said Monday that unless something changes, it looks like GOP leaders will have to pull the bill.
This was actually Plan B, a one-year extension because they couldn't manage to actually get together on the real five-year authorization bill. The Senate, and several agriculture trade bills, are adamantly opposed to the stop-gap, one year extension, and Republicans have completely shut farm-state Democrats out of the process.
The result is that for the first time in modern history this Republican leadership can't pass a bill that Republicans have always loved. This is even more embarrassing for Republican leadership than the transportation bill debacle.
Congress recesses on Friday for five weeks and it's looking like they'll be going on vacation without dealing with the worst drought emergency in decades.