Heritage Action, the outside political group that worked with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to push House Republicans into last October's shutdown,
is ready to do it all over again:
Heritage Action released the following statement in response to press reports of a potential budget deal between Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA):
“Heritage Action cannot support a budget deal that would increase spending in the near-term for promises of woefully inadequate long-term reductions. While imperfect, the sequester has proven to be an effective tool in forcing Congress to reduce discretionary spending, and a gimmicky, spend-now-cut-later deal will take our nation in the wrong direction.”
Although the potential Ryan-Murray deal
is rumored to boost spending above sequester levels, there isn't an actual deal in place, so Heritage is urging Republicans to oppose something
that may or may not even exist.
The message, however, is clear: Heritage expects conservative Republicans to preserve sequester austerity. No matter how unpopular it may be, they'd rather create another fiscal crisis than adjust spending levels to meet the needs of 2014.
If Heritage succeeds in convincing Republicans to scuttle a budget deal, it won't automatically force another shutdown because Congress could simply pass another continuing resolution keeping government open. But if Congress can't even agree on a budget, it's hard to see how it could manage to pass anything but a simple extension of 2013 spending levels into 2014. That might avoid a shutdown, but it would be yet another example of how Republican dysfunction forced us to once again govern by crisis. Speaker Pelosi can't come quickly enough.
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