[JAFF]

A band of malcontents refuses to support funding bills while accomplishing nothing.
By
The Editorial Board

Wonder Land: Most federal employees already work from home. Let's make that permanent. Images: AP/iStock Photo Composite: Mark Kelly
The old saw is that faculty politics are so bitter because the stakes are so low. The same principle now seems to hold sway in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is on the verge of shutting down the U.S. government in order to achieve—nothing at all.


Funding for the government runs out at the end of the fiscal year at midnight Saturday, and a handful of House backbenchers have refused to vote for bills to keep it open. On Friday they blocked a bill that would have kept it open for a month while also reducing spending, fortifying border security, and creating a bipartisan fiscal commission.

This stopgap bill would have failed in the Senate in any case. And a Senate bill to keep the government open for 47 days with $12 billion for disaster relief and aid for Ukraine also can’t pass the House without Democratic votes. But the GOP malcontents promise to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy if he passes something with Democrats. Bluto and the Faber College boys in “Animal House” couldn’t have come up with a more stupid and futile political gesture as this looming shutdown.

The responsibility lies with the likes of Florida’s Matt Gaetz and Arizona’s Andy Biggs, who seem to want a shutdown as a show of political manhood. They certainly won’t end up cutting any spending, and a shutdown will probably result in more. Republicans control only the House, so a bipartisan agreement is inevitable to fund the government.

But this isn’t really about policy at all. If it were, House Republicans would have passed the 12 annual spending bills that they could then negotiate with the Senate. It’s their only chance to get something past President Biden’s veto pen. Yet until this week the same Republicans calling for “regular order” in appropriations and who slam continuing resolutions were blocking spending bills out of pique.

The real goal of the malcontents seems to be to topple Mr. McCarthy for personal spite. If Mr. McCarthy is forced to seek Democratic House votes, the Democratic price will be even more spending. Then the Gaetz Republicans will call for a motion to vacate the chair, and Mr. McCarthy could lose his speakership.

But then what? What suicidal imperative would cause anyone else to sign up to be Speaker? At this point it’s like volunteering to be the next wife of King Henry VIII. The result is unlikely to be different.

It’s a shame that a handful of holdouts are able to hold the entire GOP House hostage. Most House Republicans came to Washington to check Democratic spending and achieve what else may be possible in divided government. They put a ceiling on spending in the debt-ceiling deal this year, but they risk giving that back with the shutdown stunt.

It’s all so pointlessly stupid, with failure foreordained. Their constituents wanted conservative policies, but the Gaetz Republicans are playing personal games.