Once Shutdown Ends. . .Then What?

The Reid-McConnell negotiations are making progress.  The only questions left involve the details.

“Senate Majority Harry Reid is going to strike a deal with his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell at some point in the next few days. The deal will reopen the government for a medium length of time—possibly till January 15, when the next round of sequester cuts kick in—giving the two sides time to replace the sequester with something more appealing. The deal will also raise the debt ceiling—maybe for as little as a few months, maybe until after the 2014 election. Reid will give up almost no concessions in return for any of this, with the exception of one or two symbolic items, and he’ll probably get some higher-than-sequester level of government funding (a top Democratic priority) for a month or two starting later this year. Pretty much every Democrat in the Senate will vote for the deal, along with at least five and maybe as many as 20 Republicans.”

And as Ross Douthat notes, this was the inevitable ending from the beginning of this ridiculous exercise:

“Every sensible person, most Republican politicians included, could recognize that the shutdown fever would blow up in the party’s face. Even the shutdown’s ardent champions never advanced a remotely compelling story for how it would deliver its objectives. And everything that’s transpired since, from the party’s polling nose dive to the frantic efforts to save face, was entirely predictable in advance.”

But what happens to the GOP next, that is not certain.  I see two options, the Tea Party loses its luster, and goes back to the role it has played in the GOP for decades, blindly following big business’ lead regardless of how it affects their welfare.  Or it splits off and starts a realignment in party politics.  The first indication of which way they go will be whether they attempt to depose John Boehner after he puts up the Reid-McConnell compromise for a vote.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.