Chris Stirewalt:
The assumption in Washington is that the government will shut down when the current stopgap funding measure expires on April 8.
The questions now at hand are – For how long? And who gets the blame?
Democrats are working on a plan that would allow them to say they tried to meet Republicans halfway on spending cuts. This is similar to the earlier effort in which Democrats said they were meeting Republicans halfway because they were abandoning $47 billion in spending requests sought by President Obama.
The new effort on the Democratic side involves taking cuts already made and adjustments in other expenditures outside the realm of Republican cuts – annualized changes in farm subsidy rates, for example – to claim that they are proposing half of the $61 billion in total reductions sought by the GOP.
It looks like a mess, but the goal isn’t good bookkeeping. The goal is to divide the House Republican caucus and position themselves to profit politically. While there is no sign that Senate Democrats and the White House have a real accord on cuts, the message from Majority Leader Harry Reid and his team is already in place on the assumption that some kind of plan will eventually be produced.
The narrative from Reid and others is that Democrats and moderate Republicans want to meet halfway, but that a brigade of Tea Party savages is preventing them. He paints the Republican leadership as hostages who would gladly sell out but are politically afraid to do so.
It’s not clear if Reid’s primary intent is just to insult Speaker John Boehner or to rile up freshmen members, but either way, the ultimate goal is still the same – divide and conquer.
While this narrative is very attractive to reporters who have been flogging Tea Party rebellion stories since three months before the 2010 elections, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will work in the long run.
For the Reid plan to work, Senate Democrats actually have to cough up a plan. It doesn’t have to succeed, but it has to get past the Senate, or at least have the unified support of the body’s 53 Democratic members. The Democratic caucus in the Senate smacked down Reid’s last gambit -- $6.5 billion in cuts for the rest of the year.
“First, they didn’t believe one dime in spending could be cut. Then they relented and agreed to cut $10 billion after Republicans forced the issue. Then Democrats said they could offer $11 billion more, but most of it was gimmicks,” a senior House GOP staffer told Power Play. “And suddenly, days later, they say they can offer $20 billion, but they won’t share it with anyone. Republicans have passed a credible plan; it’s called H.R. 1. Where is the Democrats’ bill, and where is their plan?”
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I think the Democrats are in more trouble than they think. About two thirds of the country want larger spending reductions. Many of them want more cuts than the Republicans have provided. Reid's attacks on the Tea Party are a repeat of the mistakes Democrats made before the 2010 election. I think these guys are about to get the Tea Party fired up again.
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