Ted Cruz and Congressional Republicans Continue to Push for Another #GOPshutdown!
From CNN:
Ted Cruz talks shutdown strategy with conservatives
The Texas firebrand senator and GOP presidential candidate plans to huddle with House conservatives amidst a growing number of conflicts between the party's leadership and right flank.
Cruz has sent out invites for a meeting...
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas), who said he was invited to the meeting in Cruz's office, said there's a reason for the skull-session: to collaborate on strategy opposing the party leadership.
"The establishment would like the House conservatives never to talk," Huelskamp told CNN. "Because we always hear that our leadership said this and that are impossible to do. How do we get around the reluctance of our establishment in Washington to get done what we all said we were going to do in August?"
"I am meeting with Ted Cruz…It's a free-flowing conversation," said Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala)…
It's not the first time that Cruz has met with the House's most conservative lawmakers…It is similar to a 2013 effort to unite conservatives behind a push to defund Obamacare, an effort that prompted an internal GOP battle and a 16-day government shutdown.
From Reuters:
Congressional Republicans showed no signs on Wednesday of having a clear plan for averting a U.S. government shutdown in three weeks over funding for Planned Parenthood…
As has happened before, a shutdown on Oct. 1 would likely rattle financial markets. But Republicans had little to say about this in their remarks about the women's health group and conservatives' demands that its federal funding be cut off.
After an hour-long, closed-door meeting of fellow party members, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said there were "no decisions at this point" on the content of a stopgap funding bill for the federal fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
The House has only seven legislative days before the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year and the expiration of federal funds, which would trigger a shutdown.
Republicans have tried before to undo federal programs they oppose by attaching controversial legislation to must-pass spending bills. For more than two weeks in October 2013, many federal programs stopped after Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and others tried, but failed, to kill President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law as part of a government funding bill.
Earlier this year, some Department of Homeland Security operations halted when Republicans, again unsuccessfully, tried to overturn an Obama executive action on immigration.