Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has a plan for trying to protect the Republican Senate majority this election cycle, even with Donald Trump looming. His big idea is to move spending bills, making it look like the Senate is functioning like it's supposed to—getting shit done. As usual, McConnell isn't taking into account the depth of the mess that is the House Republican majority. Or the extent to which trying to get spending out of that body is going to become an even more massive fight than it's been so far.
To recap, the Freedom Caucus-types are having buyers' remorse, now reneging on the budget agreement most of them supported last fall. They want to roll back the spending level they all agreed to then, and have refused to allow a budget framework to pass. Now, there's a way for the House to get around having that budget agreement when it comes to appropriations bills—they could "attempt to 'deem' a budget adopted, a path taken every year since the 1974 Budget Act that an actual budget has not been adopted." Even if they do that (and Speaker Paul Ryan has already said he doesn't want to, because he'd need Democrats to help do that and that was the main thing that got his predecessor John Boehner in trouble), they have to agree to rules for each of the spending bills to come to the floor. Appropriations bills are almost always offered with open amendments and when "appropriations bills come to the floor under open rules, the Rules Committee loses its ability to dictate which amendments are permitted to be offered and thus prevent votes on potentially divisive issues." They could try to close the rule to keep Democrats from offering amendments, but that would still mean the wack-job Freedom-y guys could offer up theirs. And they would be ridiculous.
There's another problem with ignoring both the budget process and the shortcut of "deeming" a budget: "Bypassing both a budget and deeming resolution raises another question: What is the role of the Budget Committee?" You've got this powerful committee—one that Paul Ryan himself rose to prominence through—that would be rendered meaningless. Which brings us to the most absurd thing to happen so far in the 114th Congress.
Budget Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) said this year showed the need to overhaul the entire budget system.
“I think it's clear the process is broken. That's why we're going to undertake a rewrite of the '74 Budget Act, because it isn't working,” he said April 28. “And we'll begin that as soon as we get back from the break.”
So to avoid dealing with the problem created entirely by a minority of House Republicans—the Freedom guys—they're going to dismantle and recreate the budget process. They're going to throw the whole 42-year-old structure out and start over from scratch, because of course they can get that done by the end of September, when the government has to be funded again! Oh, and yeah, an Obamacare replacement plan, too. They can knock that out, right?
Remember, this is Republicans proving they can govern. Is it any wonder Donald Trump is their nominee?