The lobbying industry, which has been laying in near-dormancy ever since sequestration kicked in, is getting ready to fight for money in the upcoming budget negotiations. Ironically, this means that Washington DC is kind of, sort of, working again. It also means that the Republicans are in for a world of pain. Because they refuse to lift spending above sequestration levels or tolerate any new revenue, that means that they are going to piss off every single lobbying organization in the country. It won’t be enough to tell a defense industry lobbyist that you’ll try to restore some of their funding by taking it out of granny’s fixed income. The scheduled defense cuts are far too deep for that game to work. The high-tech industry and the Chamber of Commerce still want immigration reform, and will be annoyed at the Republican leadership for not allowing a vote on it that would pass. Seniors and educators are going to be unsatisfied even if they get a good deal, relatively speaking.
Simply put, the budget is too austere. It’s so austere that the House couldn’t even pass a transportation bill because their own members couldn’t stomach the cuts. If the Republicans don’t make enough concessions to pass a Farm Bill, one of their strongest constituencies is going to revolt.
I don’t see how the Republicans can oppose immigration reform and stand by and allow the kind of cuts to defense, agriculture, entitlements, and transportation that they are contemplating and retain the loyalty of the armed services, the farmers, the elderly, and the Chamber of Commerce. I don’t know how the voters will react, but the lobbyists will turn to the Democrats.
To understand how the Republican Party is grinding itself into oblivion, you need to understand how their ideology has drifted away from the interests of their most powerful and organized supporters.
