Here's what to expect in the Senate
today:
The Senate will vote Friday on legislation to keep the government funded, setting up a weekend showdown with the House and tough choices for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a series of four votes beginning at 12:30 p.m., one of which will strip language defunding ObamaCare from the stopgap spending measure.
In the end, the Senate will pass legislation keeping the government running until November 15 of this year, and they'll do it without
strapping a bomb to their chest. Senate Democrats and most Senate Republicans had hoped to schedule the vote before today, but de facto Senate Minority Leader Ted Cruz and his official sidekick (Sen. Mike Lee of Utah) objected, because they would rather blow the government up than give Obamcare a chance to start working.
Even before the votes took place, Cruz was already blasting his colleagues as a bunch of wimps too scared of the political fallout from shutting down the government in order to stand on the principle that affordable health care is an Obamanation that shall not be tolerated:
“A lot of Republicans, they have been here a long time, and they are beaten down and they’re scared that if we stand together on this, and if a government shutdown results, that Republicans will be blamed and it is too politically risky. I just think we need to stand for principle and actually stand together,” the Texas Republican said on Fox New’s “Hannity.”
But the real question isn't what happens next in the Senate, it's what happens next in the House, where Speaker John Boehner must decide whether to pass whatever the Senate sends him or to try to pass something new. Whichever scenario he opts for, the big issue is whether he'll try to pass something with nothing but Republican votes or if he'll reach out to Democrats.
If he adopts the first strategy, a government shutdown would almost certainly begin on October 1 because he won't be able to muster a Republican-only majority without including language that defunds Obamacare, a point made clear in a letter sent by 21 House Republicans yesterday to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell saying that they would consider any vote to fund government without defunding Obamacare an act of treachery against the Republican Nation Of Obamacare Haters.
A far more rational strategy for Boehner would be to either pass the Senate legislation or to come up with something that House Democrats can support. Insisting on passing a bill that can pass with Republican votes alone would make the Hastert "rule" (requiring a majority of the majority) look like child's play.
Meanwhile, even as Republicans struggle to prove that they aren't insane on the question of whether to shut down the government, they are also dealing with the pathetic reality that they can't even agree on what should be in their debt limit ransom note. Yesterday, GOP leadership leaked their list of demands for raising the debt limit, but by the end of the day it became clear that they didn't have 217 votes to pass it, so now they are on to Plan C.
No matter how you look at it, the Republicans are putting on embarrassing display. It'd look bad enough if they were simply strapping a bomb to their chest and threatening to take everybody down with them unless Democrats and Obama bend to their will, but these guys are also fighting with themselves at the same time. It's the kind of thing that makes you hope for external intervention:
Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black opens the chamber this morning by praying: "Lord, deliver us from governing by crisis." AMEN!
— @edatpost
But despite all the nonsense, there is some good news. Democrats control the Senate and the White House and there are 200 of them in the House. That means it would only take 17 Republicans (18 when the House is at full strength) to cross the aisle and join Democrats in preventing Armageddon. Republicans will probably cave before that scenario becomes likely, but the fact that it could happen—and probably would, if the alternative was an extended government shutdown or breeching the debt limit—means House Republicans don't actually have the leverage they claim. Even if 90 percent of them want to blow up the government, they still don't have enough votes to actually do it.
Join Daily Kos and the DCCC and tell John Boehner: It’s time to cut the Tea Party loose and work with Democrats to keep the government funded and avoid a disastrous default.