Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma is the Deputy Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. He’s been on the floor of the House for the last hour insisting that the House Republicans have fully funded the Department of Homeland Security for the next year and that they have no further obligations to do anything to prevent that department from running out of money. He hopes the Senate will pass something and they can take it to conference to hammer out the differences.
This is a combination of spin and happy talk. The truth is that the Senate Republicans cannot pass anything but a clean bill due to Democratic filibusters, and the House can’t pass a clean bill because their own members won’t vote for one.
Despite all the talk, Congress is no closer to solving the DHS funding conundrum. Republicans in both chambers openly admitted they are clueless on how to avert a shutdown at the DHS, slated for Feb. 28.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) told The Hill. “We should not cut off funding for the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Clueless” is actually an apt term here. They do not have a plan, and any obvious plans don’t have the votes.
The root of the problem is pretty simple to understand. The Republicans want to take away the Executive Branch’s ability to set its own deportation policies and they want to insert that language in the DHS appropriations bill. The Democrats will never allow that, and the president would veto the bill if they did. So, the Republicans will either cave in on the issue or the department will run out of money. The House Republicans want the Senate Republicans to cave and the Senate Republicans want the House Republicans to cave.
“I think the Speaker’s position is, and our position is, that the House has already acted. It’s time for the Senate to act,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.).
“I don’t hear any deviation among my colleagues,” added Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.).
“The Democrats in the Senate have a calculated strategy to deny that funding … so the ball’s in the Senate’s court, and more particularly, the Democrats in the Senate,” he said.
There’s an effort to place the blame for this impasse on the Senate Democrats, but the Republicans are firmly in control of both chambers of Congress and have the responsibility to fund the government. And they know it.
Democrats hammered the GOP Wednesday in speeches on the House floor on the possibility of a shuttered DHS. They are very confident Republicans will cave and pass a clean bill. And if they don’t, Democrats say the public will blame the GOP — as it did during the 2013 government shutdown.
One senior GOP senator leaned in and whispered to The Hill: “Of course Republicans will get blamed” for a shutdown.
I don’t like the way concerns about terrorism are used as a cudgel to shut down debate in this country, but it’s inevitable that the Republicans will be blamed if anything bad should happen while the Department of Homeland Security is trying to operate without funds. In fact, if I weren’t at least a little bit concerned about this lack of funding leading us to let our guard down, I’d really be enjoying the spectacle of watching the Republicans trying and failing to govern this country.
And how will #YourLiberalMedia report this? Will they point out the GOP is a clueless bunch of idiots?
Two days ago, so-called moderate Senator Mark Kirk (Hypocrite-IL) was saying how if anything happened in the event a funding bill was passed, they should put coffins outside the office doors of every Democrat.
Within 24 hours he was saying, “I think the Democrats have a point.”
His in-box must have been overflowing with complaints.
The fact is that the only thing they need to do is pass the funding bill and then pass an immigration bill like the one that the Senate approved last year.
Apparently “clueless” is now defined as not being able to see the blindingly obvious.
Wow, these guys (and they are almost all guys) are really whistling past the graveyard here, hoping bluster and “The sky is green and YOU’RE WRONG FOR SAYING OTHERWISE” statements will prevail somehow. In his daily brief this morning, Boehner fielded a question about DHS with a chortling “The House has done our job!” followed by a quick exit from the room. If he was comfortable with this stand, wouldn’t The Orange Man have stood there and gotten his shots in?
Even with a wired-for-Republicans press corps I don’t see how this works for them nationally- it’s just too incompetent on what they claim as their signature issue to be ignored, and the pure racism poured into this mix is also visible for all those who can see. Please proceed, GOP.
Those of us who grew up in the midwest know that if the sky is green, you’d better hold on to your hat and head for a storm shelter!
This is what everything will come down to: the Republicans inability across the board to run this country. They have spent all their time, influence, and money attacking the President and Democratic policies and set nothing back to construct a unified plan to run the country.
They want to win the Presidency, but they have no decent candidate. They want desperately to repeal Health Care, but they have nothing to replace it with. They want action on Immigration, but have nothing in place to make it work. Too much animosity and attacks with no substance for their agenda.
Democrats cannot stand by and wait for the structures they’ve put in place to fall. We cannot rely on the Republicans eventual FAIL to happen. It’s got to be an ongoing campaign for us to hang onto the standards we’ve fought so hard to implement.
The dog caught the car, er, government. What to do? Fun times.
A shattered GOP; it’s hard to remember when the most annoying and pervasive Republican quality was unanimity.
The GOP is united in the cause of getting elected and obstructing the Democratic agenda. Everything else… not so much.
Interesting what happens when Democrats refuse to be the kabuki chorus.
I’m sure that there are administrative measures in place by the Obama administration to avoid a security catastrophe. Some might even involve cutting some Congressionally inspired grifting. Like slowing construction on the Great Wall of Amexica.
And then there are other potential executive orders to deal with the crisis that the Republicans have created, which may be rescinded by legislation. Wonder is setting up a real path to citizenship is possible under executive order.
I wonder how long it’s going to take to housebreak these puppies.
the Kochs recruit for obedience not for brains; imo that’s one reason the Kochbots don’t attend committee meetings – the proceedings are way over their heads and they don’t like the discomfort of sitting there clueless. also the Kochs fund them to vote the Koch line not to participate in committees where they have no clue
One can only hope that if something does happen in the USA do to a DHS shutdown. That the American people will rise up and strike out against the TP/GOP strongly.
The GOP is about to blow up their relationship with corporate America. DHS is very involved internet security. This part of DHS is full of contractors who will be the first laid off.
The truth is that the Senate Republicans cannot pass anything but a clean bill
And that’s exactly what should happen next.
told you that we’d see how much of the crazy Harry Reid had kept at bay.
Tell me again how Republicans will be “forced to govern” this year?
Please tell me how slowing down (there are always administrative means to keep the REALLY important stuff going) Homeland is going to hurt?
Maybe the ONLY country on Earth to make people take off their shoes … won’t?
What about not paying the guy who moves the colors around on threat index?
Homeland Security is a mosh pit of turf wars with CIA, DEA, MI, FBI and all the other alphabet soup intelligence/enforcement agencies.
It SHOULD be shut down.
Homeland Security also includes FEMA. Being in California during an historic drought, with fire season coming up, I would really like for FEMA to be at work. Sure, there’s plenty of the DHS that we can and should dismantle, but some of it actually matters.
The pieces that matter existed before DHS. Shoving all those together in a police/militaristic structure was a dreadful idea — as is the name itself.