Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that he is working with Harry Reid and President Obama—and suggested House Speaker Paul Ryan is on board—to come up with a short-term government funding bill that would last into December, thereby confirming the worst fears of the Freedom Caucus, and picking a fight with them.
"The Speaker is talking to his members, I believe, later in the week about how to go forward," McConnell said. "We are two separate bodies, but we're talking to each other."
Some Republicans in the House have called for the stopgap funding legislation—known as a continuing resolution—to last through next March. A short-term CR until December would give the lame duck Congress a chance to work out a permanent funding plan for next year.
The Freedom-types are enraged at the idea of Congress doing anything at all in the lame duck because who knows why. They see bogeymen behind every thing that leadership thinks must be done—they're just compulsively opposed. They probably also think it would be fun to put off the next government shutdown threat into what will almost certainly be Hillary Clinton's first hundred days. Because that's the kind of shit they love to do. But all this means there will be a fight in the next 20 days of legislative work to keep government funded after September 30, and the House maniacs might just decide not to give in.
Consider what one of their main rabble-rousers, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) says.
On Wednesday, Huelskamp said the House "screwed around all summer and did nothing" to push for appropriations bills. He also accused Ryan of prematurely making a deal with Democrats before rank and file members returned from recess.
"I think Reid and Ryan have already worked out a deal that we all go home and Obama wins again and we are going to abdicate our power of the purse," Huelskamp said.
Obama wins again. That's the part he really hates. Granted, Huelskamp is feeling particularly bitter, since he just lost a primary and he blames that loss entirely on the fact that leadership threw him off of the Agriculture Committee back when John Boehner was in charge, and Paul Ryan didn't personally reinstate him by fiat. The actual loss might have had more to do with the fact that Huelskamp refused to vote for the farm bill, which is kind of a big deal if you live in Kansas. At any rate, the maniacs might just decide that they have to take a stand with their defeated colleague, letting him go down in a massive fight that shuts down government. Five weeks before a general election. Now that would be some punishment for the so-called establishment GOP.
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