Polls: Boehner Better Not Shut Down The Government

Anytime two sides go into conflict, someone wins and someone loses. In 1995, Newt Gingrich, a new Speaker of the House with a big, conservative majority, decided to shut down the government in a dispute with President Bill Clinton. The result was pretty bad for Gingrich, as Clinton got most of his way and went on to be re-elected.

Polls suggest that if Speaker John Boehner, in the exact same spot now, wants to replay that fight, he'll find the same result. From TPM:

A PPP poll of registered voters released this week showed that most Americans think a government shutdown would be bad for the country. And if a shutdown does occur, the poll also found that a majority of Americans would blame Republicans for the mess, not President Obama.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they believed a government shutdown would be bad for the country. At the same time, 53% said they would put more blame on congressional Republicans than on Obama for a shutdown, while just 22% said the reverse.

That finding backs up an ABC News/Washington Post poll released earlier this week, in which 45% of adults said they would blame Republicans for a shutdown, compared to 30% who said they'd blame Obama.

Basically, read that as saying "do it and pay the price." Accusations of overreaching have already done a lot of damage in state houses, and the national GOP would be well advised to hear those cases out. If they choose to go into this fight with the White House, and take the President to the mat on spending levels, they are at great risk for political destruction. The Democrats will need roughly 25 seats (the exact number will be more clear after re-districting) to re-take the House, and Speaker Boehner would be well advised to not hand it over on his own. I'd be fine if he does though.

Schumer In His Own Words

Schumer Exposes The GOP On The Budget

Chuck Schumer changes the debate:

"A bipartisan compromise simply will not be found in the domestic discretionary spending cuts alone," Schumer said in a half-hour presentation at the Center for American Progress. Without a broader scope, Schumer said, "we won't be able to come to a compromise on a seven month budget."

Schumer's entreaty changes the frame of the debate on Capitol Hill, which for weeks has been driven by Republican leaders, who have isolated their focus to domestic discretionary spending. Democratic leaders, who are unwilling to countenance major cuts to government services, had little luck playing on GOP turf, but will now have a coherent alternative to point to when negotiations over how to fund the government continue in coming days.

Schumer noted that the GOP's plan for spending cuts does almost nothing to reduce the deficit -- a fact that runs at cross-purposes to their insistence that the deficit must be reduced.

"Right now a very small, very intense ideological tail is wagging the dog over in the House of Representatives," Schumer said. "Their fervor for spending cuts is not grounded in deficit reduction at all. Instead the far right wing has deliberately confused two separate issues. They've conflated reducing the deficit -- which is not their true priority -- with cutting government -- which is."

Schumer endorsed the approaches taken by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, both of whom reduced or eliminated deficits by cutting discretionary spending and addressing entitlements and tax revenues. He identified achievable savings on all three flanks, including cuts to defense spending, agriculture subsidies, and a surtax on millionaires and billionaires.

Yes! Yes, Yes, Yes! This is correct! So what did the GOP say:

Republicans were caught off guard by the Democrats' new approach.

"Right now we need to crawl before we can walk, and that means finishing last year's business and complete a spending bill," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also tried to retrain the focus on the narrow sliver of the budget where Republicans feel most comfortable. "Their answer is to raise taxes, not to cut spending, and that's not something anyone else is talking about," he said.

"They want to raise taxes, grrrrr!" The GOP is a joke, void of any real ideas to govern. Their cuts to discretionary, non-defense spending are a joke, and don't do anything about the deficit.

The Cowardly Republicans Won't Vote For Their Own House Budget

There comes a point where you make yourselves into a joke. The GOP is there.

Senate Republicans have gone back on their word and now refuse to vote on the House version, Reid says.

“We agreed to hold a vote on the Republican plan – H.R. 1 – and then vote on the Democratic plan, which makes much smarter cuts and more solid investments. Then we would return to the negotiating table and try again to find common ground,” he says.

“That was the deal. But now Republicans are reneging on that deal. They don’t want to vote on their own bill,” Reid says. “As I’ve said before, the budget we outline – and our votes on that budget – reflect our values. Values like helping our nation recover and prosper, giving our children a strong education, encouraging innovation, and keeping America competitive.

“Another value I hold dear is keeping one’s word. Where I come from, people keep their word. I’m disappointed the Republicans refuse to keep theirs.”

Meanwhile, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell shot back on the Senate floor Tuesday, defending the House bill and attacking the Democratic alternative.

“One is a serious effort to rein in wasteful Washington spending that’s gotten completely out of control. The other, by our Democrat friends, is a proposal so unserious that even its supporters have been forced to exaggerate its impact, something they’ve been called out on repeatedly by the press,” McConnell says.

As to when a vote would occur on the dueling budgets, McConnell only would say it would be "at some point this week."

Well alright then Mitch, fair enough. If the Democrats have such a crappy plan, why not vote for the plan passed by Speaker Boehner's House. After all, that's the "serious," Republican plan. Put it up for a vote, cast a "yes" vote, and cast a "no" to the Democrats plan.

Mitch McConnell won't do that though. At some point in the past week, the GOP consultants polled these things and realized the House GOP committed suicide passing their garbage budget plan. McConnell, who has a serious chance to be Senate Majority Leader soon, isn't going to blow that for the sake of the bill he believes in. He instead wants to be able to just vote "no" on the Democratic one. McConnell isn't serious here, and shouldn't be taken as such.