The insane demands of Republicans to avoid a government shutdown aren’t insane enough for some Republican Congressmen:
The House proposal (at least as originally conceived) is a grab bag of GOP goodies, most of which were bullet points in Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign platform. But it lacks the most controversial elements of the GOP agenda — Medicare privatization, Medicaid devolution — and as such doesn’t cut enough spending for some of the most hardline conservatives in the House Republican conference. It also doesn’t include any abortion restrictions.
As such, Boehner and his leadership team can’t whip up 217 Republicans (the current threshold for passage) to back it, and since zero Democrats will support their crazy plan, it’s dead. At least as currently written.
Chait thinks that there is a perverse logic to this turn of events:
Why would the most conservative Republicans settle for forcing Obama to implement Mitt Romney’s platform? They thought Romney’s platform was too timid in the first place! They were willing to vote for figures like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, not to mention Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, as an expression of their dismay with Romney.
Now, it may seem a little silly to insist that Obama accept an agenda that was too extreme to prevail in a Republican primary. But if you’re already insisting that Obama accede to an agenda that was too right wing to win a general election last November, at this point, what’s the difference?
The Dish 