Harry Reid Pulls Spending Bill; Would Government Shutdown Serve Democrats Better?

After Republicans backed away from the Senate spending bill when they got caught with earmarks after renouncing them, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the bill.

Republicans contributed mightily to this failure and are going through their own culture war — torn between the Senate’s old-bull pork-barrel ways and the more temperate fiscal gospel of their new tea party allies.

Adding to the GOP’s worries is the agitation on the right over the high cost and impact on the deficit of a post-election compromise that its Senate leadership struck with President Barack Obama — authorizing more than $850 billion in tax and unemployment benefits.

Republican leader Mitch McConnell didn’t manage his troops very well.

…he encouraged the omnibus effort before the election and… even after Nov. 2, McConnell continued to hedge his bets, never taking out his estimated $112.8 million in spending earmarks, nor pulling back old friends on the Senate Appropriations Committee working on behalf of the measure.

He and many other Republicans, who also left their earmarks in the omnibus, are now scrambling to separate themselves from their handiwork. Thursday brought McConnell’s second Claude Rains “Casablanca” moment of the week, when he essentially expressed shock that there’s gambling in Rick’s Café.

Many progressives dream of letting Republicans shut down the government as they did during the Gingrich era. That didn’t work out too well then for Republicans.  It probably wouldn’t work out too well for them now, either. As Secretary of State Clinton has said, funding is needed for global security.

“We need these resources now more than ever to support national security priorities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where we are helping secure gains made by our military and preventing the spread of violent extremism,” Clinton said. “Our budget is being used to help stabilize the global economy, combat extreme poverty, demolish transnational criminal networks, stop global health pandemics and address the threat of climate change.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.