POLITICS - Fiscal Blockage in the U.S. House

Boner paying big time for allowing Tea Party members into the Republican Party.

"Boehner Seeking Democrats’ Help on Fiscal Talks" by JONATHAN WEISMAN, New York Times 9/12/2013

Excerpt

With Congress momentarily freed from the Syrian crisis, lawmakers plunged back into their bitter fiscal standoff on Thursday as Speaker John A. Boehner appealed to the Obama administration and Democratic leaders to help him resolve divisions in the Republican ranks that could lead to a government shutdown by month’s end.

In meetings with Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders on Thursday after a session with Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on Wednesday, Mr. Boehner sought a resumption of negotiations that could keep the government running and yield a deficit-reduction deal that would persuade recalcitrant conservatives to raise the government’s borrowing limit.

Much of the federal government will shut down as of Oct. 1 unless Congress approves new spending bills to replace expiring ones, and by mid-October, the Treasury Department will lose the borrowing authority to finance the government and pay its debts.

“It’s time for the president’s party to show the courage to work with us to solve this problem,” said Mr. Boehner, who argued that budget deals have been part of past agreements to raise the debt limit

But a bloc of 43 House Republicans undercut the speaker’s deficit-reduction focus, introducing yearlong funding legislation that would increase Pentagon and veterans spending and delay President Obama’s health care law for a year — most likely adding to the budget deficit.  That bloc is large enough to thwart any compromise that does not attract Democratic support.

“Obamacare is the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed in Congress,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana.  “It is the most existential threat to our economy” that the country has seen “since the Great Depression, so I think a little bit of additional deficit is nothing,” he added.

Just five scheduled legislative days stand between the House and a government shutdown that has loomed for months.  As of now, Republican leaders appear to have no idea how to stop it.  House members are preparing for the worst.  A 14-page fact sheet on the impact of a government shutdown, originally written in 2011 by Representative Scott Rigell, Republican of Virginia, has gone back into circulation among House members.

The MOST dangerous event since the Great Depression is the forming of the Tea Party (aka our-way-or-no-way party).


"Obamacare Battles in the House Put Burden on Boehner as Budget Deadlines Loom" PBS Newshour 9/12/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  As Congress returns to Capitol Hill this week, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is in a bind to pass major spending bills before the Oct. 1 fiscal year deadline.  Gwen Ifill speaks with Todd Zwillich of Public Radio International about how the battle over Obamacare threatens to shut down the government.