Republican leaders in the House are struggling to rein in the more conservative members of their party in order to pass a budget that does not specifically defund the Affordable Care Act in order to avoid a government shutdown, according to the Los Angeles Times.
House leaders have a plan that will make use of a seldom used procedural trick that would allow the House to pass a bill with the defunding attached but when the bill goes to the Senate the measure will be removed; a budget with the defunding attached to it is very unlikely to pass in the Senate, according to the Associated Press.
"Our goal here is not to shut down the government. Our goal is to cut spending and to stop Obamacare," House speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said. "I believe that the strategy that was outlined to the members this morning accomplishes that."
A budget needs to be passed by Sept. 30 in order for the government to avoid a shutdown. Tea Party aligned Republicans believe that President Barack Obama, who has promised a veto, will back down and sign any budget that keeps the government running.
Republican leaders such as Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., don't want to be seen as being responsible for causing a government shutdown believing that doing so would be political suicide in 2014.
Many House Republicans have accused leadership of merely trying to move on to the next thing as opposed to having a long-term vision of what they want to get done, according to Politico.
"I don't think the vision and the long-term path is being articulated," Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., told Politico. "You're seeing short-term fixes. It's like playing a football game and all you talk about is the next down. You don't talk about winning the game. It's like, let's play this next down and do the best we can."
Sen. Ted Cruz, one of the most vocal opponents of the Affordable Care Act who has mentioned that he supports a government shutdown if necessary, has slammed the plan being forwarded by House leadership.
"If House Republicans go along with this strategy, they will be complicit in the disaster that is Obamacare," Cruz said in a statement. "Another symbolic vote against Obamacare is meaningless."
Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told the Associated Press that if Boehner and other leaders were looking to Democrats to help pass this budget they don't have their support; the budget supports the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration derided by the Democratic Party.
