No Government Shutdown But What's the Next Hostage?

     The good news is it won't happen. I think that's the good news though Klein points out that Democrats could have refused to pass the CR without fixing the sequester.

     The bad news is that the ink on the deal between the Senate and the House on CR was hardly cold before the GOP was promising another round of debt ceiling chicken-Debt Ceiling Chicken 3.0?

      In any case, the CR was passed:

      "The House on Thursday passed a bipartisan measure to continue funding the government through September, averting a shutdown one week before the lights would go out.

      "The final vote was 318-109 — 115 Democrats joined 203 Republicans to pass the bill."

      "The legislation, which passed the Senate by a vote of 73-26 on Wednesday, now goes to President Obama for his signature."

       "The continuing resolution sustains the lower spending levels under sequestration but provides flexibility to the Pentagon and a handful of domestic programs in an effort to avoid some of the worst impacts of the automatic, indiscriminate spending cuts. It was the product of bipartisan negotiations to address the top priorities of each party."

       "The passage of the bill, a full week before the deadline, reflects a desire among both sides to avoid a government shutdown. Republicans demanded spending limits but refraining from pushing poison-pill amendments that have previously threatened shutdowns."

     http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/congress-averts-government-shutdown.php?ref=fpb

     It's not yet clear to me how good or bad a deal the Democrats got in this. Did domestic spending get as much relief as Pentagon spending? 

     There's been some talk about what the GOP must do to have any chance as a national party in the future. They say they want to diversify and appeal to minorities and women. Yet the party is like the proverbial Zizekean Obsessive-Compulsive who will do anything for you "except that." 

     The "that" for the GOP, their "X" that they'll never do is simply change their policies. So no sooner was the ink cold on the CR deal than Boehner is embracing the next round of debt ceiling chicken. Again, he's playing the "dollar for dollar" card-the ceiling can only be raised dollar for dollar with matching spending cuts, ignoring that the debt ceiling refers to money Congress has already pledged to spend. 

     "House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) laid down a tough requirement for raising the debt ceiling Thursday, all but ensuring a reprise of the tense standoff two years ago that saw America's credit rating downgraded."

     "Speaking at his regular news conference, Boehner said the only way the House would go along with raising the country's borrowing cap was if President Barack Obama and the Democrats came up with an equal amount in budget cuts."

     "Dollar for dollar is the plan," Boehner told reporters, adding that there have been no major talks on the debt limit at this point.

     "The president has been clear that he's not going to address our entitlement crisis unless we're willing to raise taxes. I think the tax issue has been resolved," said Boehner. "So at this point then, I don't know how we're going to go forward."

     "With the budget cuts from sequestration now taking effect and politicians on all sides trying to further trim the deficit in ongoing budget negotiations, launching yet another round of spending cuts to meet the speaker's standard would be daunting, to say the least.:

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/john-boehner-debt-ceiling_n_2924662.html

      Boehner never explains how the tax issue is resolved because of $600 billion in tax hikes for the rich in January but the spending issue hasn't been resolved when three times that amount from spending has already been cut. 

      For all this, Boehner is doing this to please the Tea Party base. He's already said he doesn't think that the full faith and credit of the U.S. government should be used as leverage to abolish ObamaCare as he intimated again:

      "But I'm not going to risk the full faith and credit of the federal government," he added, suggesting instead that the differences between Republicans and Democrats could be resolved through the ongoing budgetary process."

      The Republicans claim they don't want to veer from crisis to crisis. Yet this is not true. Every time one bomb is detonated, they pull the pin off another one. One thing Grover Norquist has proved to be right about is what he said after he gave his blessing to the fiscal cliff deal: this is going to be a tough two year fight. The party is determined to get the policies through hostage taking that the voters rejected last November.