How The Confederate Flag Could Cripple The GOP's Plan To Win The Budget Battle
The timing of last week’s unexpected fight in Congress over the Confederate flag could not have been much worse for congressional Republicans. If GOP leaders don’t get a handle on the issue soon, the debate could undermine their position on their major agenda issues, particularly in the high stakes budget battle expected this fall.
Their plan was to strengthen their position in the budget standoff by passing a series of conservative spending bills to show that they could govern and to put negotiating pressure on Obama and Democrats in the budget process. But with the standoff over the Confederate flag, none of the spending bills are going anywhere immediately. That has created a roadblock with no clear way around it for Republicans, all due to the party's reluctance to abandon the flag entirely.
The way the Confederate flag has been injected into and stalled the budget process says as much about the increasingly bitter budget process as it does about the larger issues of race and "heritage." It's not that race and competing versions of history aren't at stake. They still are. But the budget process itself was ripe for something like this to derail it.
According to Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, this is a problem of the Republicans' making, as the GOP has sacrificed what was once a bipartisan process in passing spending bills, by pushing spending proposals filled with provisions deliberately toxic to Democrats and President Obama.
“That leaves Boehner in a very tough position in getting the bills through the House,” Ornstein explained in an interview with TPM, as the speaker must keep on board hardcore Tea Party Republicans who would oppose almost any spending bill that doesn't entirely demolish domestic programs.
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