The government shutdown will enter its seventh day on Monday, with no obvious end in sight.
Not only that, but Republican leaders in Washington are suggesting they could also refuse to increase the federal debt limit, a move that would damage America’s economy even more than the shutdown.
What’s behind this brinkmanship? At heart, it’s about three groups fighting for control over Washington.
1. President Obama and the congressional Democrats
Obama administration officials hold two views they are prepared to strongly defend. First, they will not agree to substantial changes in the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”,) which they believe has been ratified through passage in Congress in 2010, a Supreme Court decision upholding it last year and the presidential election. Secondly, they believe the Republicans linking the debt ceiling to policy changes is a pattern that must be broken, not just in this round of negotiations, but permanently, so that the American economy is not in danger of a potentially catastrophic default every few months.
In the administration’s view, any bill that would substantially hurt Obamacare is verboten in the first place. Tying that to a temporary government funding bill, as the Republicans are seeking, makes that worse, as it would encourage the GOP to use every subsequent piece of legislation to further weaken the health care law. But the White House is most outraged that Republicans would consider the debt ceiling, an absolutely must-pass piece of legislation, as instead a bargaining chip over the healthcare law.
“Important to remember that GOP wants to delay health law in exchange for 2 month CR, what will they want next time and the time after that,” Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said in a recent Twitter posting.
Those positions are big challenges for the Republicans, because the GOP forced a government shutdown over the health care law, now is effectively admitting Obama has won that debate and is looking for any kind of “win” through the debt ceiling process, such some specific cuts in Medicare or Social Security that might satisfy conservative activists who initially wanted some kind of delay or defunding of the health care law.
White House officials argue House Speaker John Boehner walked himself into a position where conservatives are expecting some kind of policy achievement, and Republicans need to “figure their own way out of this,” in the words of one senior administration official.
Administration officials said they are willing to discuss almost anything else besides those two issues with Republicans. At the same time, they emphasize that the budget deficit is already going down and that Democrats have already agreed to reduced spending levels in annual appropriations through the so-called sequester.
In effect, the Republicans who won in 2010 have reduced federal spending, as they promised conservative voters they would. Administration officials argue Republicans should be happy with that success and stop moving the goalposts to the health care law.
2. The Tea Party Republicans
There is a bloc of Republicans, particularly in the House, who either fantastically still believe Obama can be forced to substantially pare back the health care law or who think it’s such bad policy that it’s worth a government shutdown and potential default on the nation’s debts. Republican officials I talked to said this group was from 20 to 40 members in the House, depending on how broadly you define this bloc. Some of the Republicans in this group in the House include Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Steve King of Iowa and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, while Ted Cruz of Texas is the most prominent senator who holds these views.
How can 20 or 40 people push 279, the total number of Republicans in the House and Senate? Very simply. The most hard-line members help define conservatism for the rest of the party. Members who don’t support the defund Obamacare movement may face primary challengers from more conservative opponents or struggle to win Senate or gubernatorial races against other candidates who do. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky privately discouraged Cruz’s anti-Obamacare push over the summer, but is unlikely to do so publicly, as McConnell’s Tea Party challenger in Kentucky, Matthew Bevin, is a vocal supporter of Cruz’s approach.
“How willing a candidate or incumbent was to close the government – and opposed to a compromise on Obamacare that would reopen it – looks like the base’s latest test of who’s a true believer or a squish,” Politico wrote this weekend.
So this small bloc of House members and senators have outsized clout. And they see little reason for compromise. Bachmann is leaving Congress in 2014, Massie represents a conservative district in a state (Kentucky) where Obama is very unpopular, Cruz is considering a presidential run as the champion of conservative activists.
3. The Silent Republican Majority
Most of the House’s majority, like the Tea Party members, don’t like President Obama or the health care law. Some of them told me they are annoyed by Obama’s repeated declarations that he won’t negotiate with congressional Republicans. They are conscious of protecting their right flank from potential challengers. And the majority of them are quite conservative themselves.
At the same time, they are dubious of the shutdown-over-Obamacare approach, which they simply don’t believe is working. Many of them are ready for the party to reach a deal that combines ending the shutdown, increasing the debt ceiling and some minor conservative policy achievement, and then move on to other debates.
“This is what happens when you don’t have a strategy,” said one Republican House member, who did not want to be quoted criticizing the GOP’s approach.
So for many House Republicans, the best approach is to vote with the Tea Party conservatives and back the shutdown publicly while quietly urging Boehner to find a way out of it. (The members who are most prominently calling for an end to the shutdown are Republicans from places like New York, Pennsylvania and California, where Obama and Democrats are more popular and GOP members could lose their seats to Democrats). These Republicans would prefer to cast one series of votes unpopular with the conservative activists, instead of voting to end the shutdown today and then increasing the debt ceiling a couple weeks later.
The public and private debate between this group and the Tea Party conservatives will likely determine what happens over the next few weeks. Without the Tea Party faction pushing the debate to the right, most Republican House members could back a debt ceiling increase and government funding bill with minimal concessions from Obama. But these members will be wary of indicating that, with Tea Party conservatives ready to cast them as “RINO’s” (Republican In Name Only).