Office_Shredder said:
The takeaway lesson from all of this is that the debt ceiling better expire pretty soon after any budget resolution does, because otherwise we'll be in for a long one.
It's kind of funny, but if Republicans really wanted to play the debt ceiling card, immediately after government authority to spend money has expired was the best possible time.
Usually, it's asinine to pass a resolution that requires the government to spend money and then to prohibit the government from procuring the money it needs to execute the requirements that Congress set. There's no flexibility. Saying the President can prioritize by paying bills, spending on essential activities such as defense, while not spending money on welfare, social security, etc, is suggesting that the President can execute a line item veto of the budget Congress passed and that idea has already failed the US Supreme Court test.
If the government doesn't have authority to spend money because Congress hasn't passed a budget, then I guess money already committed by previous budgets/resolutions is the only thing the government can spend money on.
The real reason this failed is because you had a debt ceiling crisis in 2011, followed by sequestration, followed by yet another series of crises due to failure to pass a budget and yet another debt ceiling crisis. You've reached a point where people think Republicans are creating crises just because it's fun.
There's some things you don't do (mess with the debt ceiling) and some things you better do right the first time (government shutdowns due to lack of a budget) because these aren't things you can whip out as a weapon every day. It's gotten to the point where people are more familiar with Republicans shutting down (or at least threatening to shut down) government than they are with Obamacare.
I really think it's gotten to the point that another government shutdown between now and 2014 would pretty much destroy Republican chances in the Senate and would do some decent damage in the House, too, even with districts being set up to favor incumbents.