No shutdown, but a shutout?

Politico reports that in the Murray-Ryan budget talks there remains alive a proposal in which "overall discretionary spending levels would be set in the $1 trillion range for 2014," which is "an uptick from the $967 billion spending level under the Budget Control Act but lower than the $1.058 trillion level initially sought by Senate Democrats."

Not exactly a great leap forward in the annals of rational budgeting, but it's some progress, right? Yet there is something about the word "uptick" in relation to both federal spending and House Republicans that doesn't quite harmonize.

Is it realistic to think that tea partying House members and their partisan brethren, the perpetually paranoid, would form a majority of the majority in support of supplementing Democrats' Maoist proclivities, such as teaching toddlers the alphabet?

Right. I agree. Not a chance in our irrational hellhole of a House. But alas, a mere six paragraphs later, Politico's report sort of takes it all back anyway. To wit:

Recognizing that the talks could always collapse, Speaker John Boehner is prepared to pass a bill next week that would fund the government past Jan. 15 at $967 billion.... [S]ources said Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would be prepared to accept a fallback, stop-gap measure at $967 billion to avoid another shutdown.

So it seems that House Republicans will be faced with a deep conundrum here: a trillion-dollar bill, or a $967 billion bill that comes Democratically pre-approved.

 

Comments

[Peter G]

Democratically pre approved or not it comes with a rather high price for Republicans. The message that I'm getting from Harry is that the Republicans can have the budget number they want but in order to get this fallback position they are going to have to make those wonderful noises about shutting down the government again.

Pragmatically I see little option but to do so unless the Democrats want to go into the 2014 midterms with the goal of ever rising federal budgets as an albatross around their necks. They aren't going to get them anyway are they?