The deal announced on Tuesday between President Obama and congressional leaders will, if approved, keep the government open for the remainder of his term in office and offer modest budget increases in both military and domestic spending. In agreeing to the deal, Speaker John Boehner, who departs his post on Friday, gives his successor, Paul Ryan, a parting gift: the right to do nothing.
The deal, in short, makes sure that the government will fulfill its most rudimentary obligations. Federal law-enforcement agents will continue to go to work; food-safety inspectors will keep up their duties; park rangers will keep tourists from falling into Old Faithful, at Yellowstone. The debt ceiling will be lifted, so the government’s credit will remain intact. And, because the continuing operations of these functions will be guaranteed through March, 2017, two months into the new President’s term, the House and Senate will not be compelled to do anything else.
Under normal circumstances, this would hardly be seen as an advantage. Throughout most of its history, Congress did a lot more than pass a budget. It passed laws to address national problems—to guarantee voting rights or expand access to health insurance or reform immigration laws. But the modern Republican Party operates principally as a negative force. It exists to oppose, and regards compromise as surrender. Indeed, it seems likely that the only reason Boehner could agree to this budget deal at all is that his comrades in the G.O.P. have no leverage against him—they’ve already forced him out.
In deference to the feelings of a good number of his new constituents (that is, the Freedom Caucus and other radically conservative House Republicans), Ryan pronounced himself disappointed with the deal. “I think the process stinks,” he said. But it appears that he will vote for it. Still, if the deal does pass (not a sure thing at this point), it will be mostly with Democratic votes in the House, along with a few straggling relics of what used to be called moderate Republicanism.
The bizarre, extreme behavior of the Republicans now in charge of the House of Representatives reveals itself most strikingly in those it has chosen as its principal enemies—Boehner and his counterpart in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, now the Majority Leader. They are hardly what conservatives like to call “squishes.” As the leader of his party in the Senate, McConnell was best known for this expression of his priorities: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term President.” Likewise, Boehner said the following about his plans for Obama’s agenda: “We're going to do everything—and I mean everything we can do—to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”
In expressing these views, Boehner and McConnell were channelling the beliefs of their party. Republicans had no higher goals than to defeat Obama and stall his agenda. They failed to stop him from winning in 2012, but they did manage to vote dozens of time to repeal his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act. In taking all these votes, the Republicans in the House never came up with an alternative to Obamacare, but that was never the point. The point was to oppose—endlessly.
The chilling reality, though, is that the new leadership in the House may make Obama and the country regard Boehner’s reign as the good old days. When he wasn’t hurling insults at the President, Boehner did have the temerity to meet with Obama and try to find common ground on a handful of areas, at least on keeping the government open. Mindful of the consequences of Boehner’s apostasies, Ryan’s team will probably not make that mistake.
And the Republican Presidential candidates? During the debate Wednesday, in Boulder, they were already competing to oppose the budget compromise the loudest, cripple it the most, and, if possible, shred it altogether.
