If wunderkind Paul Ryan thought he was going to be able to reason with the House "Freedom" caucus on passing the budget, he was sorely mistaken. Here's a glimpse of how his Tuesday soda, beer, and all-things-snacky meeting went with them, via Matt Fuller:
If Republicans want to pass appropriations bills this year, they have to accept the budget number that leaders from both parties agreed to at the end of October.
"There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that I’ll vote for that," caucus member Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) told The Huffington Post after the meeting.
Was that a "no" or just a friendly shout out to Sen. Jim Inhofe? A "no," methinks ...
"Paul Ryan has two choices," Brooks continued. "He can either support a financially responsible path that rises to the challenges that America faces, or not."
Freedom Caucus members spent roughly two hours urging Ryan to put forward a budget that reverts to the spending figure set under sequestration, the across-the-board spending cuts imposed in 2013.
So yeah, it turns out Ryan's got the same caucus John Boehner had. And if the goal is passing all 12 appropriations bills through Congress during a presidential election year, good luck with that.
1. It hasn’t been done in more than 20 years. Congress hasn’t passed all 12 appropriations spending bills through both the House and Senate since 1994, when Democrats controlled both chambers, President Bill Clinton was in the White House.