Shutdown Countdown: Here We Go Again, Part 4

And the threatened GOP shutdown of the government over the 2012 budget this week continues to be an issue as FEMA could run out of money for disaster relief operations as early as tonight.  Brian Beutler spells it out this morning:

It's not just that Democrats are tired of being kicked around, although that's part of it. Democrats reject in principle the notion of tying disaster assistance to a partisan budget process -- particularly when Republicans won't even consider raising a penny of new revenue and demand that everything be offset with semi-arbitrary cuts. They specifically reject the offsets House Republicans settled on, particularly one that would nix a successful loan program to encourage production of hybrid vehicles. And they believe that the GOP's demand represents a violation of the agreement the parties reached during the debt limit fight.

That agreement set discretionary spending levels for the coming fiscal year at $1.043 trillion. Republicans are thus far respecting that part of the deal. But it also left Congress with some breathing room in the event of a disaster -- $11 billion in spending over the cap in the event of emergencies.

Well, there are plenty of those, and Republicans are well aware of it. Nearly a dozen of them joined Senate Democrats in passing stand-alone legislation to top off FEMA's account without any offsets almost two weeks ago. Now they're lining up in support of the proposition that FEMA can only be refueled if Democrats swallow unpalatable budget cuts.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a vote for 5:30 p.m. tonight on legislation that mirrors the House spending bill, minus the disaster aid offset. If it fails as Republicans have signaled it will, then FEMA will have to freeze its operations, and we'll be well on our way to a government shutdown.

Imagine that, Republicans reneging on their deal with Dems in order to try to cause damage to the President's reelection chances.  Nobody could have predicted the top priority of the GOP was to make sure President Obama was a one-term leader by any means necessary, etc.

And now it gets serious.  Americans will be denied disaster relief operations and there are ongoing efforts in the northeast after Hurricane Irene as well as in Texas after wildfires and drought that will have to be mothballed.  If there are any other disasters this week, well sorry America, FEMA can't help you because the Republicans are too busy being assholes.

This gets real as of tonight, folks.