House Speaker Paul Ryan had a brief respite from kissing up to the maniacs that drove out his predecessor, John Boehner, in the form of a budget agreement negotiated by Boehner last fall and a couple of long holiday breaks. But that's all over now as Ryan tries to figure out how to pass spending bills based on that budget agreement and get it all done by August, the deadline in an election year. Good luck to him on that.
House conservatives are threatening to vote against the annual budget resolution if it includes a $30 billion spending increase that was agreed to by congressional leaders late last year. The disagreement is threatening to derail House Speaker Paul D. Ryan's plan to quickly move spending bills this year in an effort to show Republicans can effectively handle the basic responsibilities of governing.
Some Republicans are now suggesting one way to avoid a messy intra-party fight is to skip drafting a broad budget framework and jump directly to writing the annual spending bills based on last year's funding agreement.
"Yes, I think so," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said Wednesday when asked if he would support this plan.
Those House conservatives are still pissed off that Boehner thwarted their worst efforts last year, and that they were beguiled enough by the promise of Ryan to go along with it. Now they want to reject that agreement after the fact and start over from scratch. "Let's write a Republican budget, a budget that actually lowers spending," said Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who apparently was not mollifed by having Ryan headline his birthday fundraiser this week.
If House leaders decide to spurn the maniacs and forego the budget bill writing, then Ryan is going to be in a position that Boehner found himself in time and time again: Needing to negotiate with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to get the Democratic votes necessary to get spending bills passed. That’s the very thing that the maniacs hated the most about Boehner.
Ryan needs to make this happen. He needs to demonstrate, in an election year, that Republicans can actually govern and he needs this personally and politically to show that he can lead. Once again—good luck with that.