The Revenge Of The Return Of The Son Of Shutdown Countdown, Redux

If it's August, House Republicans must be trying to shut down the federal government again, and this year is only different in the respect that there's a large enough bloc in the House GOP Freedom Caucus to force Speaker Kevin McCarthy to get Democratic votes to pass any legislation, and that Democrats get to make their demands too.

The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus is demanding a series of conservative policy changes in exchange for giving their support to any short-term funding measure designed to avert a government shutdown on Sept. 30.

The Republican rebels are insisting that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who floated the idea of a stopgap bill last week, impose conditions that are extremely unlikely to be accepted by the Democratic-led Senate and President Joe Biden.

In a statement Monday, the Freedom Caucus said its official position was that the group’s members would oppose any bill unless it includes their preferred language on border security, new laws to address what they call the “weaponization” of the Justice Department and FBI and a shift in some of the Pentagon’s policies — although they didn’t detail all the changes they want.

“We refuse to support any such measure that continues Democrats’ bloated COVID-era spending and simultaneously fails to force the Biden Administration to follow the law and fulfill its most basic responsibilities,” the statement said, adding that any short-term bill that continues funding at current levels represents a position they “vehemently opposed” months ago.

The speaker will likely have to take the conservative demands into account given his party’s slim margin of control in the House, as he did during the fight over raising the nation’s debt ceiling, when their demands formed the basis for the House Republican negotiating position with the White House.

It is unlikely Democrats would help supply the votes for McCarthy to pass a short-term spending bill that includes the policy demands of the Freedom Caucus. And if they did, conservatives have held open the option to retaliate by forcing a vote to overthrow him as speaker.

After the group issued its demands, House Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, tweeted: “House Republicans are determined to shutdown the government and crash our economy. We will fight these MAGA extremists every step of the way.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a terse response to the Freedom Caucus demands: “If the House decides to go in a partisan direction it will lead to a Republican caused shutdown,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

Republicans basically want all the things that lost the last time they tried to shut down the government earlier this year, so we're right back to the same hostage situation were were in a few months earlier.

But it's closer to the 2024 election this time, and crashing the economy now is something these assholes want to blame on Biden heading into November of next year.