So, Paul Ryan has decided not to...
That budget collapse is not what the Speaker is going to talk about in his latest big speech this afternoon. But after months of rhetoric and lofty promises, Speaker Ryan and House Republicans are ready to stumble past the April 15th statutory deadline to pass a budget resolution.
CNN: Former budget chair Paul Ryan likely to miss budget deadline
House Speaker Paul Ryan -- who developed a national profile as one of the Republican Party's biggest thinkers -- is on the verge of failing to pass a budget, an embarrassing setback that underscores deep divisions inside the GOP.
…the budget drama is abig political black eye for Ryan and his top lieutenants who promised a return to "regular order" under his leadership.
The Hill: This week: Congress expected to miss budget deadline
The House returns this week after a long spring break and is expected to blow past the statutory deadline to pass a budget…
Congress is supposed to pass a budget by April 15 under the Congressional Budget Act in order to begin the annual spending process. But House members will return into session Tuesday night after a nearly three-week recess without any plan ahead for passing a budget, let alone before the Friday deadline.
Vox: What Paul Ryan's House budget woes tell us about the continued crack-up of the Republican Party
April 15 was supposed to be the day when House Republicans, under the leadership of Speaker Paul Ryan, were going to have a budget framework approved. But April 15 is almost upon us. And the House GOP is nowhere near consensus.
Instead, Republicans are fighting the same internal battles they were fighting last October, when a House Freedom Caucus Revolt ousted then-Speaker John Boehner for being just another Washington insider…
…The 2016 budget process is looking more and more like another dysfunctional charade laying bare the internal party conflicts.
The slow train wreck of the House budget process
…The hope was that with Boehner, the weak-willed establishment compromiser, gone, Republicans could finally grow a spine and exact the big cuts they really wanted — and defund and kill Obamacare once and for all, as they had promised.
By March, however, it was increasingly clear that this was not going to be the case. Ryan had put together a budget framework. The House Freedom Caucus didn't like it. To them, it still looked too much like the framework from last year, the one where Boehner and the White House compromised. It didn't cut domestic spending programs by $30 billion…
…Never mind that under Ryan's leadership, the House Budget Committee (along with the Republican Senate Budget Committee) decided to break with 40 years of precedent and not even bother to hold a hearing on the president's budget.
…the House speaker will face the same impossible choice Boehner faced last time around: Make a deal with the Democrats to get a spending agreement that can actually become law with the signature of a Democratic president and lose your speakership, or shut down the government by demanding cuts and an Obamacare repeal no president named Obama (or Clinton) will ever sign.
It's a no-win choice. Shutting down the government further damages the rapidly sinking Republican brand. Keeping the government running by making a deal with the Democrats further pisses off the anti-establishment renegades just weeks before the next speaker election.
The American people aren't worried about Speaker Ryan's plans for his political future. What they are worried about is a dysfunctional Republican Congress more interested in stacking the deck for the special interests than doing the basic business of governing. It's time for House Republicans to join with Democrats to pass a budget that invests in the future, creates jobs and grows the paychecks of hard-working American families.