Steve Benen chronicles the history of threats of government shutdown due to funding, as we’re facing today. I was unaware that it was that extensive. WaPo has a comment from the governing party:
“We have one real responsibility here, and that’s to keep the government funded,” said Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “There’s a lot of stuff we want to do or we’d like to do, but there’s one thing we must do and that’s to pass a budget and keep the government funded. And it is very frustrating that simple, basic task has become such a herculean effort.”
There’s a clue in Representative Dent’s lament. Then, from the opposition:
Added Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.): “I think it makes us all look terrible and it calls into question whether a democratic republic like the one we live in can actually govern itself in a predictable way.”
As a software engineer, sometimes it really pays to go back to basics when working on a problem, and I think perhaps it’s worth doing this hear. Keep in mind that a significant problem in the House has been the intransigence of the Freedom Caucus, a band of Tea Party right-wing extremists who were instrumental in the oustering of Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) from his post as Speaker, which led to the resignation of his seat. There general philosophy is to cut government spending.
Senator Bennet’s woes concern the lack of predictability of Congress. Predictability relates to the inputs to some process and how the process produces the outputs. What are the inputs on Capitol Hill? Well, for Bennet, it’s Democrats and Republicans and their respective agendas.
But I don’t think so.
For me, it’s implicit in the previous paragraphs, and close observers of Congress should be aware of this. It’s Democrats, Republicans, and the Tea Party. They may be cruising under the flag of the Republicans, but their agenda, particularly financial, is at divergence with the GOP. They are the fiercely extremist-conservative. Like any group of people, they do share certain views with the Republicans. No doubt they share views with the Democrats.
But in the end, if you want to be able to predict the results of Congress, you need to understand that the reality is that we’re currently in a three-party system, and the minority Tea Party holds a lot of power. This is not only because the Republicans and Democrats are far apart in their set of goals, leaving the Tea Party with leverage when the Republicans are a little short, but also because the Tea Party is currently under false colors. People don’t understand that the Tea Party is arguably its own Party and not just a faction of the GOP. Currently they have the resources of the GOP at their disposal, if only they can get their candidates on the ballot under the flag of the GOP – and, so far, they have been very good at that. They’ve toppled Boehner, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA), who was House Majority Leader when he was ousted in a primary by Tea Party member Dave Brat, and many others.
It would probably be a lot healthier for everyone – but the Tea Party – if the GOP just kicked them out and made them run under their own name.
And their own results.
