GOP increasingly ready for government shutdown

Jan. 5, 2013

The appetite for a government shutdown is growing among Republicans, who had shied away from one during the debt and spending fights in the last Congress but now say one may be needed.

Several high-profile senators this week began laying the groundwork for a shutdown, saying that it may be necessary in order to restore “fiscal sanity” on the federal budget.

“I think the last time we saw a shutdown, the fact that Republicans were willing to stand together — on fiscally conservative principles — ended up producing a result that was responsible and that benefited the country and that ultimately produced enormous economic growth,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, a freshman Republican from Texas.

Fellow Texan Sen. John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the chamber, wrote an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle on Friday saying a partial shutdown may be needed to show Congress is serious about cutting spending.

“It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country, rather than plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain,” he wrote.

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, also said the GOP needs to be “to tolerate a temporary, partial government shutdown,” telling MSNBC this week that it could be disruptive, but it’s better than accepting ever-increasing spending.

After losing on most of their demands in this week’s tax deal, which included minuscule spending cuts, congressional Republicans have warned that they will not cave in on the next fights.

Those battles include another increase in the government’s debt limit, due within two or three months, and another battle over automatic spending cuts, due by March 1. A month after that the government’s funding runs out and must be renewed for the next six months.

Missing the debt deadline would force the government to cut about 40 percent of services immediately, while missing the six-month spending deal would mean an even broader shutdown.


The automatic spending cuts, or sequesters, would impose nearly $90 billion in immediate cuts.

Mr. Cornyn said the GOP’s willingness to see a partial shutdown should be a warning to President Obama, who has said he will not negotiate changes to spending with Republicans in exchange for another increase in the government’s borrowing ability.

But even if he won’t negotiate on the debt ceiling, Mr. Obama will be unable to avoid negotiations over the annual spending bills, which run out on March 31.

In the wake of the tax fight, some analysts have said Mr. Obama now has a weaker hand since the tax-rate issue is off the table, and the fight now is on the GOP’s issues of spending and debt.

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday that she thinks Mr. Obama keeps a strong hand after the debt fight.

She also said Mr. Obama should consider bypassing the debt fight altogether and claim the Constitutional ability to make good on the debt regardless of the ceiling set by Congress.

“I would do it in a second,” she told reporters.

House Speaker John A. Boehner, talking to fellow Republicans behind closed doors Friday morning, didn’t go as far as his Senate colleagues in warning of a shutdown, but he did say Mr. Obama will have to talk spending cuts in exchange for a debt limit deal, according to a source in the room.

The debate is already under way,” he said.

source: Stephen Dinan and Tom Howell Jr. - The Washington Times