Here's the top three things to know about whether and how Republicans will fund the Department of Homeland Security before its coffers run dry in 15 days:
1) The GOP's only way out of the hole they have dug themselves may be to pass a short-term funding bill for DHS. Here's details from Burgess Everett:
Many in the Capitol see a short-term extension as the most likely solution to keeping the Department of Homeland Security’s funding from running out at the end of the month, especially with the chambers deadlocked on language that would roll back President Barack Obama’s immigration policies.
2) Even Republicans realize that doing so will lead to an endless merry-go-round of subsequent funding debates, leaving no room for real work.
High-ranking GOP senators are sending a warning flare to the House: The only thing worse than missing the first deadline of the year would be fighting this battle all over again in March or April.
“We’ve got to get off this. We’ve got to get it behind us. We have to at some point bring it to closure,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican. A short-term DHS funding deal “would be a bad outcome for the Senate just in terms of us being to do other things. … If we have to do a short-term extension, we’ve got to revisit this. The next time it comes over, it will take another couple weeks.”
3) Sen. Mitch McConnell is setting up a fourth doomed vote on the House's anti-immigrant DHS funding bill for Feb. 23.
DHS funding runs out on February 27. So yes, that vote, which will fail, leaves Republicans just four days to come up with another solution. It's unclear whether McConnell is trying to put the screws to Speaker John Boehner by leaving such a short window (let's face it, Boehner's crappy bill didn't even deserve a first vote, let alone a fourth), or whether the majority leader is just being wholly reckless. Either way, Republicans are in the hot seat.
Of course, in the meantime, Congress isn't doing any work on other things that really matter:
And after Feb. 27, the deadlines come fast: By March 31, Medicare providers face steep cuts in their payments unless Congress passes a law to head them off. Then transportation funding runs out in May, and in June some portions of the Patriot Act expire. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans aim to pass a budget this spring and begin writing appropriations bills for each arm of government — contentious debates that will take lots of time. And raising the debt ceiling looms in the summer or fall.
