Last week,
news broke that Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner were meeting with President Obama on negotiating a two-year budget. Turns out, that information came from McConnell and was
another move to screw over Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, even if just a little, and to make the process of negotiating a budget that much harder.
Reid and House Minority Nancy Pelosi thought they had an agreement with Republicans that a private conversation between GOP leaders and President Barack Obama about the budget would not be publicly disclosed—an effort to protect the early talks from political attacks.
But on Tuesday, with a little prompting from a reporter, Senate Majority Leader McConnell divulged that he’d been talking to the president along with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The Kentucky Republican conveniently didn't mention Senate Minority Leader Reid or Pelosi, who will both ultimately be integral to the talks despite McConnell's attempt to publicly freeze them out.
Just like that, the fall's high-stakes budget talks are off to a rough start. […]
After McConnell's comments, which Congress's Democratic minority viewed as an attempt to cut Democrats out of the talks, top aides rushed to emphasize the obvious: No deal can be made without Reid and Pelosi's assent, given that Republicans don't hold enough Senate seats to muscle a budget deal through, and House GOP leaders haven't been able to pass major spending deals without Democratic help. And, they added, Reid and Pelosi were fully aware of the GOP's talks with the president.
As if there wasn't enough uncertainty about the process now with the House in total disarray with Boehner's pending departure and one of his would-be replacements, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)
promising that he'll both shutdown government and default on the debt. You might think with all that uncertainty, McConnell would step up and be at least a little bit responsible. That he would be working to limit the chaos to the House side. But that would be giving McConnell far too much credit. Clearly, governing is still not at the top of his agenda.