The Absurdity of Washington Brain

[Celerity]

Where what matters in House Republican strategy doesn’t actually matter

https://prospect.org/politics/2023-09-19-absurdity-of-washington-brain/



Congress is hurtling toward an October 1 government shutdown, after agreeing to overall spending levels for next year’s budget just four months ago in the debt ceiling deal. That agreement was immediately broken by all sides, and so the current fight is just a replay of these disputes, conveniently without the full faith and credit of the U.S. government at risk. In that narrow, relative sense, what Congress is doing now is practically responsible. But that’s only true until you look under the hood at what they’re spending their time doing, just a couple weeks out from the drop-dead date.

So far, the House has passed one of the 12 annual spending bills needed to complete appropriations; the Senate has passed zero. It’s obvious a continuing resolution to fund the government is needed, to buy more time for an agreement. House and Senate leaders announced that weeks ago. Inherent in the term “continuing” resolution is that it continues the spending from the status quo. That’s understood by and good enough for probably 80 to 90 percent of the House and Senate, if not more. It’s only not good enough for the small faction of Freedom Caucus conservatives, who lost the debt ceiling fight and want to exact revenge.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) believes that his position is dependent on the Freedom Caucus not throwing him out of office like they did the last two Republican leaders. So the first thing he did when the House returned from summer break—only three weeks from the deadline—was to unilaterally initiate an impeachment investigation against Joe Biden. This was done entirely to cozy up to the obstinate hard right. But even before McCarthy made the announcement, they all said this would not mollify them at all. So predictably, when asked how an impeachment inquiry would affect their demands on spending, Freedom Caucus member Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) said, “Zero. Zero. They’re totally unrelated.”



Only in Washington would you respond to a set of demands with an unrelated demand and expect that to work: It’s like a manager responding to workers wanting to see the air-conditioning fixed at the office by bringing in a pinball machine. But some parasitic worm endemic to Capitol Hill gets into the brains of the leadership, seizes control of the relevant neurons, and commands the Speaker to try these absurd gambits. McCarthy then had to shelve a defense appropriations bill because there were not enough votes available on his right and none to his left. He says that will get a vote this week, win or lose. Can I get odds on that?

snip