This raises an obvious question:
Senate Republicans are growing impatient with the stalemate over 2011 funding levels and want to save their political capital for a debate on the debt limit and entitlement reform.
But they must contend with bloc of House conservatives who want an unqualified budget victory over President Obama.
For these die-hard conservatives, anything less than slashing $61 billion in spending and cutting funds for Planned Parenthood, the EPA and National Public Radio would be a capitulation.
Senior Republican lawmakers, however, say they need to preserve their political juice for the fight over the debt limit and entitlement reform, which is a more important.
We’re actually debating last year’s budget which only covers government spending through the end of September. So, would it be possible to force the Republicans into basically exhausting their political capital over this fight, leaving them in a substantially weakened position to fight on next year’s budget, the debt limit, and any entitlement reform? And, how would we do that?
It’s a good question. I think the Democrats are offering a reasonable counterproposal on the budget. If anything, it’s too generous. The key is to convince the general public of two things. The first is that the Democrats made difficult and serious concessions in the interest of cutting government spending, and the second is that the Republicans’ spurned those concessions.
When a deal is finally struck, hopefully after a brief government shutdown that is blamed on radicals in the Republican Party, the public needs to be left with the impression that the Democrats have made sacrifices that anger their base while the Republicans have refused to make any contribution toward solving our long-term budget problems.
It’s not easy to set narratives when the Republicans have such media dominance, however. The danger is that we make concessions and find ourselves in the same position all over again when it comes to the debt limit or next year’s budget. That’s why it’s important that we let the Republicans overplay their hand now, because this fight is only over spending for the next six months, while the next battles will be more significant.
