It Looks Like We’re Headed For A Government Shutdown

Created
Thu, 09/11/2023 - 05:30
Updated
Thu, 09/11/2023 - 05:30
MAGA Mike is ready to deliver for the cult Punchbowl News on where the House Republicans go from here: Democrats had a very good Election Night on Tuesday. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won reelection in Kentucky, dispatching Republican Daniel Cameron, a close ally of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Ohio voters enshrined the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution. And Democrats won control of the state legislature in Virginia. Gabe Amo, a former aide to President Joe Biden, won a special election in Rhode Island. Maybe for just a minute, this will stop Democrats from hand-wringing over Biden’s lousy poll numbers. Maybe. And anoint a new national political star in the 45-year-old Beshear. Conversely, it was a bad night for the GOP nationally. And it was a bad night for House Republicans, as their version of the FY2024 Transportation-HUD spending bill got pulled from the floor. When it will be taken up is still unclear. The big question: Can Johnson deliver? Since the birth of the Tea Party movement and the 2010 House GOP landslide, the right has pined for a speaker who would listen to them. A speaker who would pursue their preferred strategies, seek confrontation with the Senate and White House instead of compromise and run the House as if it were an extension of the Republican Study Committee. A speaker who was one of them. They’ve finally got that in new Speaker Mike Johnson, who emerged from weeks of brutal House GOP infighting as their party leader. Now the rubber will meet the road as to whether governing as a conservative hardliner can actually work.…