Speaker Ryan: GOP Can't Pass A Budget

by JASmius



Because the House Freedom Caucus won't let him.

But they're not the only obstacles.  He can still blame the predecessor that got him into this fiasco as well:

House Speaker Paul Ryan is on the verge of failing to pass a budget, a setback reportedly highlighting the same internal GOP divisions that bedeviled his predecessor.

And which he stirred up like a hornet's nest on his way out the U.S. Capitol door.

"You need the votes to pass a budget," the Wisconsin Republican told reporters Thursday, Politico reports.

"We don’t have them right now."

According to CNN, Ryan doesn't need a budget since the two-year fiscal deal Ohio-8 GOP Representative John Boehner negotiated before stepping down as House Speaker last year set overall federal spending level for the next fiscal year....

Politico notes the House Republican Conference is divided over the Boehner budget deal, which raised budget caps to allow for more government spending, with conservatives preferring to keep across-the-board cuts known as sequester, enacted into law years ago. [emphasis added]

Indeed.  So would I (aside from Defense).  So would we all.  But that cake has already been baked, as foolish as it was.  The HFC wants not just to pick at that scab, but rip it all back open again, but that would be precisely what Ryan was trying to avoid four months ago by salvaging whatever he could from Boehner's "deal," putting it in the past, and moving forward to a return to regular order.  There's definitely a lack of big picture thinking going on, and it's not coming from the Speaker's office.

I'm tempted again to wonder what Ryan ever did to Boehner to leave him holding this miserable bag - Boehner did personally recruit the Eddie Munster lookalike to succeed him, after all - but it could just as easily be the case that Boehner thought he was doing Ryan a favor by getting the FY2016 and FY2017 budget stuff off of his plate, taking the heat for it, and bequeathing Ryan a clean slate fresh start.

Which means either Boehner wanted to [BLEEP] Ryan or the orange lush really was a moron.

Or, most likely, both.

The usual fiscal year-end train wreck in a "populist" presidential election year.  Better stock up on your favorite snacks and frosty beverages, because this will be one for the ages.