Senate Republicans are predicting that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will need to reach out to House Democrats to get the votes to prevent a government shutdown at the end of next week.
GOP senators don’t think McCarthy will be able to unify his entire GOP conference behind any measure to prevent an Oct. 1 shutdown and will have to rely on Democrats to keep federal departments and agencies open.
But they predict the Speaker won’t reach out across the aisle until the last possible moment to avoid a backlash from House conservatives, who are threatening to offer a motion to essentially dump him as Speaker if he does not hew to their demands for major spending cuts.
The reality, they say, is that the only spending measure that can pass both the Senate and House is one that has bipartisan support.
This whole term proves the case for pragmatic moderates over dogmatic extremists IMO, even if you agree with the extremists. If the Freedom Caucus could just compromise with moderates, they could pass a very conservative budget, and then negotiate with Senate Democrats from strength. Since they can’t, the House can only pass things that House Democrats approve of, which will be much more moderate and the final compromise will be much more friendly to Democrats…because of these far-right Republicans.