Shutdown Averted: Congress Passes Bill Fully Funding DHS

Vox explains Shutdown averted: Congress passes bill fully funding DHS "On Friday night, Democratic leaders in the House announced that they'd made a deal with Boehner and his team: Democrats would vote for a one-week extension for the department, giving it enough votes to pass. In return, Boehner would agree to bring up a clean bill that funds the department through September."

"In some sense, though, it's been clear from the very beginning of the DHS fight in January that this is how it would end. Because this is how crises of governance always end in John Boehner's House of Representatives. Days before something happens that would severely impede the functioning of the US government, the parties are at an absolute standstill. But sooner or later, Boehner caves, and introduces a bill that gets the support of Democrats and moderate or party-loyalist Republicans to pass the House."

They then list six previous times where Boehner caved.

As Jon Stewart described on Monday, “It turns out no one can work with the Republican House”.

Kevin Drum says Tea Party Loses Big in Today's Vote on Clean DHS Funding Bill.

I wonder if Republicans could have gotten a better deal if the tea party faction had been less bullheaded? Last week's debacle, where they torpedoed even a 3-week funding extension, surely demonstrated to Boehner that he had no choice but to ignore the tea partiers entirely. They simply were never going to support anything except a full repeal of Obama's immigration actions, and that was never a remotely realistic option. The subsequent 1-week extension passed only thanks to Democratic votes, and that made it clear that working with Democrats was Boehner's only real choice. And that in turn meant a clean funding bill.

But what if the tea partiers had signaled some willingness to compromise? Could they have passed a bill that repealed some small part of Obama's program—and that could have passed the Senate? Maybe. Instead they got nothing. I guess maybe they'd rather stick to their guns than accomplish something small but useful. That sends a signal to their base, but unfortunately for them, it also sends a signal to Boehner. And increasingly, that signal is that he has no choice but to stop paying attention to their demands. There's nothing in it for Boehner, is there?

I doubt the Tea Party will start compromising. I wonder if they'll start talking about seceding from the Republican Party. That might be the only chance we have for Jon Stewart to stay with The Daily Show.