Cruzin’ for showdown

One of the more persistent misapprehensions among certain pundits is the idea that Republicans will not shut down the government because it’s bad for business. By business, they mean politics, of course, the business of the government. And as with so many beltway tropes, they say this because they harken back to dark ages of the government shutdown of 1995, in which the myth grew up that this was the reason Clinton won re-election the following year.

Whether or not that’s an accurate view of that period’s political dynamic is arguable, but it certainly has nothing to do with the government shutdowns of our current era. Sure the Republican leadership doesn’t like government shutdowns. They’re risky. But as far as Republican voters are concerned, this is a winning tactic. After all, they won big in 2014 after ostentatiously shutting down the government and creating havoc with the budget over the course of several years.

The conventional wisdom says that these GOP shutdowns in off-years work a lot better than they would in a presidential year due to the Republican turn out advantage in mid-terms. And it’s fairly certain that the disastrous Obamacare website rollout stepped on the story of Republican overreach in 2013. Nonetheless the right wing is convinced that this is a big winner for them — and frankly, even if it isn’t, they don’t care. To people who believe in the marrow of their bones that government is a bad actor designed to make their lives miserable, shutting it down, even temporarily, is a good thing in and of itself. And who knows? It might just make the other side break one of these days.

So, here we are in the fall, once again, facing a government shutdown. The committees have not done their jobs, there is no budget, and the expiration of the current budget appropriations is almost upon us. In normal times the congress would simply pass a continuing resolution and get back to work to run the government. Instead, we are facing another “showdown”.

The major issue this round is the emotional issue of Planned Parenthood funding over of the doctored tapes that Carly Fiorina so colorfully lied about in the GOP debates last week. With social conservatives smarting from their defeat on gay marriage, it seems they are redoubling their efforts to stop abortion and contraception, and the far right members of the GOP coalition are happy to oblige for all the reasons I just outlined.

Longtime congressional observer Stan Collender put the odds at 75 percent that it was going to happen, explaining in Politico that the ongoing dysfunction is most likely an insurmountable challenge for leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to manage successfully. He agrees that the Planned Parenthood issue provides the most drama and may serve as the main excuse for the deadlock. The Senate Democrats blocked a so-called “fetal pain” bill on Tuesday morning which was a largely symbolic appeasement offering to the hardcore anti-choice Republicans so they could hit the trail claiming they are heroic rescuers of fetuses everywhere. But that’s not the end of it. McConnell announced plans to bring up a stand-alone vote to defund Planned Parenthood, lugubriously proclaiming “I know Democrats have relied on Planned Parenthood as a political ally, but they must be moved by the horrifying images we’ve seen. Can they not resolve to protect women’s health instead of powerful political friends?”

(MSNBC’s Luke Russert attributed this comment to McConnell’s desire to show off for the Pope and signal his seriousness about the issue to Ted Cruz, and maybe it’s just that absurd.)

Meanwhile, a rump group of House Republicans are demanding that any spending bill defund the women’s health group, which means Boehner must have Democratic votes to pass a funding bill and Democrats are holding very firm. That issue will play itself out over the next weeks, with Boehner’s job being once more on the line.

If this all sounds ridiculous, you aren’t alone. Even GOP senators are wondering about the end game: