Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's absolute refusal to
negotiate with Democrats on spending bills and ending the sequester has Democrats fuming, and increasingly united. The dispute
was on full display Thursday morning when McConnell and Senate Minority Leader traded jabs on the Senate floor.
McConnell first came to the floor to savage Democrats' strategy of blocking spending bills, starting with defense next week, alleging they are opening themselves to "charges of hypocrisy" by relying on the filibuster.
"Democratic leaders don't seem the least bit bother by the dire national security implications of what they are doing. They packed the car for their filibuster vacation and they're ready to hit the road," McConnell fumed on the Senate floor, clad in a bright seersucker suit.
Reid's lengthy response was just as pointed, as the retiring Democratic leader revived his attacks on Charles and David Koch, accusing Republicans of doing the billionaires' bidding by letting the Export-Import Bank expire at the end of June. But Reid trained his most personal insults at McConnell, who led a filibuster of a cybersecurity bill in 2012 over a dispute over amendments and is now trying to attach a similar bill to a defense policy measure that’s headed straight for a presidential veto. […]
"I would suggest he walk into his office, his little bathroom there, and look in the mirror. Because over that mirror, he should be able to see the words hypocrisy and cynicism," Reid said of McConnell.
The funding disputes just keep ballooning, from the
defense authorization to
transportation funding. Democrats have called for a budget summit, a call McConnell has summarily rejected. Instead, he keeps adding more fuel to the fire, starting a new fight on cybersecurity legislation, which he plans to attach to the defense bill without amendments and refusing to allow a vote on the Export Import Bank reauthorization before it expires at the end of the month. That vote was a
key promise McConnell made to Democrats in order to secure the votes he needed to pass Trade Promotion Authority, a promise he's now reneging on.
McConnell's dickishness might just be enough to get all the Democrats united and solid behind the strategy of blocking all of these funding bills until he comes to the table. A government shutdown is at stake, but unlike Republican-caused shutdowns, this one is over real substance rather than partisan politics. McConnell might just drive them to do it.