A lot of conservatives are upset that House Speaker John Boehner chose not to strip amnesty funding from the so-called CRomnibus spending bill that passed the House last week. In fact, by the time the bill passed we actually saw the absurd spectacle of President Obama and Speaker Boehner working together to get it passed.
That surely didn't help win conservative fans to the bill.
I'd prefer to see amnesty stopped right this second too, and I've certainly had my share of disagreements with Speaker Boehner over the way he battles (or doesn't battle) the president. But let me explain the rationale behind this strategy, because it does make sense.
By the time Obama announced his executive amnesty action, we were only weeks away from the most recent continuing resolution running out, which meant we were staring at yet another government shutdown. Having just won new majorities in both the House and Senate, Republicans were finally in a position to put an end to the perpetual cycle of continuing resolutions and get back to doing real budgets.
That would start with passing the closest thing to a real budget that we've had since 2009, which meant a spending bill that would fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year in September. Then the new Congress could go to work on a FY 2016 budget that would be more reflective of Republican spending priorities.
When Obama dropped the amnesty bomb, the only real weapon available to congressional Republicans was to strip the Department of Homeland Security of the funding necessary to implement it. But that's hard to do when all the government's spending authority is just days away from running out anyway. And if Republicans chose to pick that fight now, it would put the entire spending bill in jeopardy and Obama would once again be able to accuse Republicans -- with the help of the mainstream media, of course -- of engineering a government shutdown.
In fact, either side in budget negotiations can cause a government shutdown by refusing to make a deal. But no matter which side actually does that, the media always blames Republicans because the narrative has been established that Republicans love shutting down the government to bludgeon Obama.
So the solution was to remove the shutdown question from the equation. By passing a bill that funds all of the government except Homeland Security through September, but that funds Homeland Security through February, you force Obama to deal solely with the amnesty issue. What Republicans will do in February is propose a spending bill that funds all Homeland Security functions except whatever is necessary to facilitate the amnesty order. If Obama refuses, he's jeopardizing national security to protect an action the public hates, and that he had no authority to take in the first place.
The result will be that he will have no choice but to start enforcing the law again.
It's not as satisfying as going to war with Obama over the issue immediately, but it sets up the Republican-controlled Congress to actually win this battle. Sometimes the smartest strategy isn't the one that feels the best, and this is one of those times.
