Senate Democrats are toying with shutting down the government on Friday. They think they might get a win out of that, but they’re not counting on who’s in charge of what a shutdown means. Just as with their antics at the congressional address last week, they are cruising for trouble.
House Republicans narrowly passed a clean funding bill Tuesday night that keeps spending about the same into the fall and successfully passes that political time bomb on to the Senate. When they were done, they promptly left town, having already canceled Wednesday’s planned votes. This is about as strong a signal the lower chamber can send that it’s done what it can and will not be considering any tweaks or changes senators want to introduce.
It’s been a while now, but for those stuck in the swamp long enough, the 2013 shutdown remains a vivid memory of just how petty and political a president can get.
