CRomnibus passes House: Dodd-Frank changes in, amnesty de-funding out

Neither the process nor the result was pretty. In the end, John Boehner was John Boehner insofar as he wanted more than anything to avoid a government shutdown, which meant he would sacrifice amnesty de-funding to get a spending bill passed if that's what it took. And it did, because 57 Democrats came to his rescue by supporting CRomnibus - even though they were furious about the rollback of some of Dodd-Frank - after 67 Republicans bailed because the bill let Obama's executive amnesty off the hook.

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So the bill is a moderate's dream and is hated by both the left and the right, which sets up some interesting dynamics when the Senate takes its turn. But in a way, amnesty doesn't get off the hook entirely:

The effort to save the bill angered some Democrats, who complained that both Obama and JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive Jamie Dimon were calling Democrats to support it. "It is very strange, very strange that the two of them would be working for the support of this bill," said Representative Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. In the 219-206 vote, 67 Republicans rejected the spending bill, largely because it failed to take action to stop Obama's executive immigration order. But that was offset by 57 Democrats who voted in favor. Shortly after passage, both the House and Senate passed a 48-hour extension to allow the Senate more time to consider the measure. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said it would be debated on Friday. The 1,603-page bill, negotiated by Republican and Democratic appropriators and leaders, drew Democrats' ire when they discovered it would roll back the Dodd-Frank law due to go into effect next year by killing planned restrictions on derivatives trading by large banks, allowing them to continue trading swaps and futures in units that benefit from federal deposit insurance and Federal Reserve loans.

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If passed by the Senate, the spending bill would fund all government agencies through September 2015, except for the Department of Homeland Security, which would get an extension only through Feb. 27. Republicans intend to deny funding to the agency to carry out Obama's order allowing millions of undocumented immigrants to stay and work in the United States.

If Republicans play this right - I know, I know - this could prove to be more of a victory on the amnesty question than it seems today. By passing a bill that funds the entire government except Homeland Security through September, they've removed the Republicans-want-to-shut-down-the-government nonsense from the equation and now set up a situation where Obama pretty much has to negotiate with them come January to get funding restored for DHS. I think that was always the idea - that you wait until you've really got control of both houses after the first of the year and then you put the squeeze to him. Passing CRomnibus under the current Congress puts you in a stronger position to do that because you take away the shutdown as Obama's opportunity to change the media narrative and make Republicans the bad guys. Next step, though: Now that they've essentially passed a real budget for the rest of the year, they need to start in early 2015 working on a real, normal-order budget for 2016. We haven't seen one of those since 2009 because real budgets hold Democrats responsible for their irresponsible spending, so Harry Reid simply stopped passing them in favor of these never-ending, always perilous continuing resolutions in which the drama is always whether or not the government will shut down, rather than what's actually being spent and on what. Republicans are going to get back to normal-order budgets, right? Right?

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