On Thursday night, less than an hour before an expected vote on a short-term budget to avert a government shutdown, the House’s far-right Freedom Caucus announced they would be supporting the deal, all but assuring its passage.
The majority of the @freedomcaucus has taken a vote to support the CR effort this evening
— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) January 18, 2018
Just a few hours earlier, House Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows insisted he had enough “no” votes in his pocket to block passage of the deal. The change of heart came after Meadows spoke by phone with President Trump, and then huddled with House Speaker Paul Ryan. To secure the caucus’ support, a GOP aide told TPM that Ryan promised Meadows the following: “The House will take up and vote for a separate DOD funding and caps-busting bill to send to the Senate that fully funds our troops. The House will work on and ultimately vote on a conservative immigration bill to send to the Senate.”
But even if the one-month continuing resolution to fund the government passes the House Thursday night, it may run into trouble in the Senate, where both Democrats and Republicans have declared their intent to vote it down.
November is coming…
Gotta admit. I’m more than a bit torn. With a 6 year extension on CHIP I think we should pass the funding resolution. 9 million kids need that insurance and we’ll be back to this again in a month.
I want to see the three Republican senators (Graham, the guy from ND and Rand Paul, I think) actually vote “no”. Because of course, I don’t believe they will - except for Paul.
Looks like the Freedom Caucus drives as hard a bargain as Susan Collins. They sold their votes for a bunch of empty promises. Highly doubtful the Senate will ever pass any of their numbskull ideas.
The DOA House CR bill… ROFLMAO