All the talk about the 20 GOP moderates comes with a pretty big caveat. They’re willing* to vote for a clean CR.
*: In a way that doesn’t embarrass Boehner. They’re willing to reopen the government and vote with Democrats if leadership allows the vote. There were other procedural tricks to get a vote on a clean CR and nobody broke ranks except Peter King. They’re not switching parties; they’re rank-and-file Republicans who’ll give Boehner the votes he needs IF he decides to pass a clean CR.
This is from an old site (that mentions the “current” Speaker of the House in the 109th Congress as being Dennis Hastert).
*How the Speaker is chosen
As the highest-ranking member of the House, the Speaker is elected by a vote of the members of the House. While it is not required, the Speaker usually belongs to the majority political party. The Constitution does not require that the Speaker be an elected Member of Congress. No non-member has ever been elected Speaker.
The Speaker is elected following each mid-term election held every-other year, and serves a two year term. Along with the title and duties, the Speaker of the House continues to serve as the elected representative from his or her congressional district, and takes part in debate and votes like all other representatives.*
The majority party usually elects the Speaker and that Speaker is usually from the majority party.
It wouldn’t even have required any party switching if the Republican powers hadn’t made a last-minute change to House rules. The Senate passed a “clean” budget bill. The House amended this bill with defunding and passed the amended bill. This had to then go back to the Senate who rejected the bill as amended.
Under the old House rules, once this happened any member of the House could then have moved a privilege to have a vote on the original Senate bill by the House: “When the stage of disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be privileged.”
But on Sept 30th the House Rules Committee voted to change that rule for this specific bill saying that this could be done “only by the majority leader or his designee.”
When questioned by Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Pete Sessions (R-TX) explicitly agreed that they’d taken that privilege away.
So IMO the Republicans leader in the House are quite explicitly forcing a shut down or at least not allowing a vote which might get around it.
See The House GOP’s Little Rule Change That Guaranteed A Shutdown - TPM – Talking Points Memo
How House Republicans guaranteed a shutdown: by changing the rules
I agree that the Affordable Care Act is similar to past GOP proposals. But the Democrats did get more coverage of preventive care than moderate Republicans (back when they existed) wanted. And if the Supreme Court hadn’t gutted the Medicaid expansion, that would have been a big Democratic win. As it is, half the states are getting that expansion.
Some reasonably decent European national health systems with universal coverage require citizens to pick between competing insurers. I’m not going to argue it is fully as efficient as single payer, and I wish that, as in Germany, only non-profit insurers were allowed. But many of the insurers here are non-profit, and it is mistaken to call Affordable Care a scam.
I just saw this too. It certainly makes this assinine behavior by Republicans Boehner’s shut down. Boehner’s cowardly Shut Down ruse. How to get this little fact to the minds of the masses?
Maybe it’s a case of crying wolf once to often? Most people I know are tired of the SSDD politics. Neither side is talking, again, and people seem to be getting tired of hearing about it.
This is the time for a strong leader to find a way to get both sides talking to each other to find a working solution. But our President says he won’t talk. Oh well, there’s always 2014. Maybe the numbers of elected reps - in the legislature - will change enough to make a difference?
Mush. Our President rightfully won’t talk to those holding a gun to their hustage’s head. If he talks or pays any kind of ransom to put the gun down there will be no end to this during divided givernment.
Thirty strong red-district Republican radicals in the House are holding the government hostage and threatening to shoot the hostage if their demands are not met.
I voted for Obama to represent me and my interests. I did not have a say in sending these hostage takers into government. No president should give an inch to such undemocratic extremist methods.
There is no leader that can find a way toward a working solution when one side and I mean ONE SIDE is threatening to do harm as leverage in the negotiiations.
Threatening harm is wrong no matter the perceived validity of the cause. And if threatening harm is rewarded all hell can break loose the next time.
A minority of radical ideologues could literally demand a popularly elected President resign or they will destroy the world economy if they don’t get their way.
You have to decide when it is time to stop it.
We should all demand the debt cieling be raised by a simple majority in both chambers when laws are passed that authorized the spending in the first place.
That is the start of making this annual manufactured crisis go away.
What needs to go away most is the Hastert rule. Parties should not control Congress, majorities should, even if those majorities are ad hoc. If a bill has majority support, it should come up for a vote, period.