The Revenge Of Shutdown Countdown

Forbes's Stan Collender pegs the chances of Republicans shutting down the government on October 1 at 60% now that Planned Parenthood is the new ACORN, and if anything, he belives that number to be low.

Republicans are vowing with ever-increasing vehemence to vote against legislation – including a CR — that includes funding for Planned Parenthood and that means that a continuing resolution that simply extends existing funding at current levels won’t be acceptable to the GOP majorities in the House and Senate. The House and Senate Republican leadership could cobble together a coalition with the moderate members of their own caucus and Democrats, but they would do so by placing themselves and their members in extreme political peril. 

This will be more of a problem in the Senate where the four senators running for the GOP presidential nomination will likely fight each other to lead the filibuster that prevents a CR that funds Planned Parenthood from being debated. Given the very little time left before the start of the fiscal year, that filibuster alone could lead to at least a quick shutdown (Fiscal 2016 starts on a Thursday so a short-term shutdown over the two days leading to the weekend plus Saturday and Sunday is certainly possible). 

Even if cloture in invoked and the Senate adopts a CR with Planned Parenthood funding, it will still have to be compromised with the continuing resolution that comes from the far more socially conservative House Republican majority that is far less likely to accept it. 

In addition, a CR that doesn’t include funding for Planned Parenthood will be filibustered by Senate Democrats. 

And the White House has already promised to veto a continuing resolution that cuts funds for Planned Parenthood, and almost no one thinks the votes will exist in either house to override it even if the government closes down as a result. 

All of this justifies the increase from 40 percent to 60 percent of the chances of a shutdown this fall. If anything, 60 percent may understate the odds of it actually happening.

I personally think this number is closer to 90% if not more.  Given what Oliver Willis calls the continuing "Trumpification" of the GOP, whoever gets to shut down the government at this point wins and breaks out of the pack like Trump has.  Senators Cruz, Rubio, Paul, and Graham will be tripping over themselves trying to make it happen.

The nutjobs in the House will run Boehner over to take advantage of that opportunity.  It'll be a madhouse and the Republican voters will be egging them on the whole way.  State are local Republicans will say "Hey, we're finally sticking it to those assholes in Washington!"  And as long as Grandma's Social Security and Medicare checks keep coming (and there's 0% chance that will stop) they won't care.

Ted Cruz proved in 2013 that you can blow things up and get rewarded for it.  Why wouldn't Republicans do it now?