House Makes Budget Deal Guaranteed to Annoy Senators on Both Sides

House

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy brokered a deal with his far right wing to fund the government. Liberals are furious and say it’s an exercise in futility because it’s guaranteed DOA in the Senate. That’s not my problem, the ranking Republican shrugs.

House makes spending deal

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced his inevitable political future square on and made a deal everyone in the red chamber should be able to live with. The deal hasn’t been officially ratified on the floor yet but if it is, the radioactive hot potato gets tossed into the Senate’s lap. Behind the scenes, half a dozen Republicans announced a workable deal on September 17 “to temporarily fund the government.

They claim that the goal is averting a shutdown but this makes one even more likely. It will simply be the Senate’s fault, not theirs. They did their part for We The People and cut spending, even if it’s only by a symbolic 1% across the board.

The military budget remains totally untouched by the House and their share of the reduction was made up by everyone else taking an 8% haircut. That essentially meets the requirements laid down by the Freedom Caucus in a way that RINOs can swallow.

The problem which keeps the deal from having an absolute certainty of 218 votes is what’s been left out. Missing in action are demands from progressives “for more than $20 billion in aid for Ukraine and $16 billion in disaster relief.

Ukraine money would be much better spent on American veterans and the disaster relief money gets replenished separately. Democrats are whining for more money to spend on the invading asylum seekers and have no intention of spending the disaster money on actual disasters unless they absolutely have to.

The House can stick it to the Senate on that as well. “Both Democratic and Republican Senate leaders have said they would tack money for those matters on to any short-term funding bill.” Let them take responsibility for the irresponsible spending.

A small but significant step

It may only be a small step but it is a significant one, left-leaning Washington Post grudgingly admits, in a backhanded sort of way.

Striking an apparent deal is a significant, albeit small, step for the House Republican Conference, whose leaders must now gather enough support for the measure to pass and fulfill a request by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to show a united conservative front ahead of inevitable negotiations with the Senate.

While everyone involved in brokering the deal is chattering that it has the 218 votes they need, already, “several” of the “conservative demands” are expected to be greeted by the Senate with utter contempt. That puts Mitch McConnell squarely in the headlights and RINOs are freaking out that he’ll just start staring at them again.

The House set them up like bowling pins and they either get on board with “ultra-MAGA conservatives” and slash spending like Freddy Krueger or face the wrath of their constituents at home.

That means, both chambers are pitted against each other “with less than a dozen days to spare to prevent a partial government shutdown.” It’s that “partial” part that matters so much. All the important things keep rolling right along. It’s only inconvenient to government workers who don’t get paid until the problem gets fixed.

The RINOs are secretly whining that the deal being forced down their throats “was not negotiated by leadership. Instead, six House Republican members from two of the five ideological factions” worked it out in one of those smoke filled back rooms.

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