Politico
reports:
House Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team will meet twice Monday morning, as House Republicans mull how – and if – they will avoid a government shutdown.
The Senate has already passed a "clean" funding bill to prevent a shutdown ("clean" means that it doesn't include unrelated poison pills like defunding or delaying Obamacare) and will reject the GOP's latest ransom demand when it convenes later today at 2PM ET, so the ball is still in the House's court.
According to Politico, Boehner and his team will discuss whether to defuse the budget dispute by following the Senate's lead and passing a clean continuing resolution or whether to double down on their efforts to extract concessions on Obamacare in exchange for keeping government open.
If leadership – and the House Republican Conference – decides to careen into a government shutdown, Boehner could ping a continuing resolution back to the Senate with additional language to peel back the Affordable Care Act. Republicans are mulling policies that might ride alongside, including delaying the Obamacare individual mandate, repealing the Independent Payment Advisory Board or sending the same bill they passed early Sunday morning back to the Senate.
Also of note: The bizarre proposal to cancel subsidies for health insurance for Congress and its employees appears dead because House Republicans don't want to screw people they know out of health insurance:
One other option includes canceling health-insurance subsidies for some government employees, including members of Congress and their staff. But there’s internal resistance to this measure among House Republicans, mainly because low-paid aides would be forced to pay thousands of dollars more for their health care. Conservatives are unlikely to be satisfied by this language.
I guess the flip side of this is that you're counting on Obamacare to give you access to affordable health insurance and you don't know a Republican member of Congress, then they don't give a damn about your situation.
GOP Obamacare posturing aside, the thing that will ultimately prevent or end the shutdown is the simplest thing of all: Passing legislation to fund the government without attaching outrageous demands, just as the Senate has done. Based purely on the numbers, it would only take 17 Republicans to pass such a bill, because 200 Democrats would vote for it as well.
It's unlikely we'll see a scenario where just 17 Republicans join with Democrats to prevent a shutdown, but the fact that it could theoretically happen is a reminder that the GOP doesn't really have the leverage to do anything other than destroy its own brand. And given that most politicians value self-preservation above all else, that means there's still good reason to believe a shutdown can either be prevented or ended extremely quickly.
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.
8:35 AM PT:
House GOP closed-door conference meeting scheduled for 2pm today
— @robertcostaNRO
8:38 AM PT:
From House GOP memo: "MEMBERS ONLY -- the staff attendance policy will be strictly enforced"
— @robertcostaNRO