Boehner Forced to Work with Democrats on Appropriations

[Prannon]

From Foxnews.com. Yes, I know, but I found it interesting and revealing. Anyone else heard about this? Is this making the rounds in other news sources?

Republicans May Again Turn to Democrats to Fund Government Through New Year

By Chad Pergram
Created 2011-11-30 15:45
Another potential government shutdown could loom if Congress isn’t able to scramble soon and cobble together a big omnibus spending bill to keep the government open past Dec. 16.

The current stopgap measure expires then. And only three of the 12 annual spending bills which run the federal government have been approved and signed into law.

That means House and Senate appropriators are putting together a massive, omnibus spending bill which they hope to have prepared by Dec. 15. This would not be an interim bill, better known in Capitol Hill-ese as a Continuing Resolution, or CR, which funds government in increments while the regular appropriations bills are negotiated.

This would simply allocate money for the remainder of currently unfunded government programs through Sept. 30, 2012. I am told that House appropriators are resistent to attaching any extraneous issues to this omnibus bill … such as unemployment insurance (UI), a payroll tax holiday, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) or the “doc fix” for Medicare.

What is significant here is that House Speaker John Boehner and GOP appropriators are turning their attention away from conservative Republicans who want to cut spending more and are insisting on a host of social riders in the spending bills, such as defunding health care reform, slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and National Labor Relations Board, eliminating aid for Pakistan and abortion.

Boehner, R-Ohio, knows that he can’t sate his conservative base in the House any more when it comes to these issues. So he’s willing to go punt and team with Democrats (which will drive the right nuts) to keep the government open.

An example of this already played out on Nov. 17 on the “minibus” spending bill to fund three sectors of the government and keep the rest of the government open until Dec. 16.

That vote was 298-121. But Boehner got 165 Democratic votes for that measure compared to 133 Republicans. Republicans will scream bloody murder now, but the vote on the minibus, with Democratic support, weakened the position of the GOP leadership to do it any other way.

“Our conference is fractured,” said a senior Republican aide familiar with the appropriations process. “We must craft a bill that’s going to pass.”

The “Big Four” appropriators from the House and Senate could meet on Thursday, and it’s possible Boehner could caucus with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [6], D-Nev., about this in the next couple of days.

[Coalition]

The fun part is the Democrats have a useful weapon if the Republicans propose a budget that is too toxic - voting present. Here is a link with a video of the voting in progress.