A Completely DeMint-ed Plan

GOP Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina wants Republicans to pull the trigger on the government shutdown option as soon as November's lame duck session of Congress.  Brian Beutler:

"[B]efore they're replaced in January, all of the Democrats who are put out of a job in November will be able to come back and rob the nation blind," DeMint writes in the conservative National Review.

At a glance it appears DeMint is lashing out at Democrats. But his real concern is that members of his own party -- who he described last week as "retiring Republican appropriators" -- will join Democrats during the lame-duck session of Congress and pass large spending legislation to keep the government running (what's known on the Hill as an omnibus spending bill).

In the article, DeMint notes that potential Republican Senate victories in Illinois, West Virginia, and Delaware would grow GOP ranks, and help them limit spending. He's urging Republicans to press Democrats now to vow not to pass any major appropriations measures in November or December.

Here's a primer on just what DeMint proposes. In short, he wants Republicans to block any plan to fund government though the 2011 fiscal year, preferring instead to let the new Congress take up government spending in February -- presumably with a much larger Republican presence in the Senate. The catch is that, if neither side blinks, we end up with a government shutdown.

Great.  That's just what our economy needs, by the way:  a government shutdown.   Since odds are excellent that the GOP will have more votes in the House and Senate after November anyway, and given that the Tea Party completely controls the Republicans now, you can count on a shutdown showdown coming in the next several months.

The question is who will blink first?  Clinton won this battle the last time around.  But there's no doubt in my mind that we'll be facing another shutdown very, very soon.  The GOP is content to let the country and our economy burn in order to get what they want.

That's their idea of "bi-partisan compromise".