Speaker of the House John Boehner set a goal of completing the entire appropriations process for the first time in years by mid-July, but that process has come to a screeching halt because of an unforeseen obstacle: the confederate flag.
Boehner told House Republicans today that the House will not pass any more appropriations bills until they can figure out how to avoid a debate on the confederate flag.
via RollCall
Boehner reportedly told Republicans during their weekly closed-door meeting that there was a hold on all spending bills until they could work something out on the Confederate flag.
Republicans are looking to avoid another floor situation like the one last Thursday when Democrats forced votes on the Confederate flag.
“We know that every approps bill that we put forward they’re going to go back to trying to make some, you know — exploit for political reasons what happened in South Carolina,” [Rep. John Fleming] told reporters Tuesday.
Representative Fleming makes it seem as if Democrats forced a vote for purely cynical reasons, but House Republicans have no one but themselves to blame. They could easily settle the matter by voting to remove the flags, but they haven't.
A Democratic amendment to the appropriations bill for the Interior Department, which would have removed confederate flags from federal cemeteries, easily passed by voice vote. House Republicans, however, approved another amendment the next day to restore the flags.
The appropriations bill for the Interior Department was pulled from the floor after House leadership realized their members were preparing to vote in favor of the confederate flag.
Speaker Boehner and House Leadership are now trying to figure out how they can finish the appropriations process without giving House Republicans the chance to vote in favor of the confederate flag. Because that would be embarrassing, right?
Unless House Republicans complete the process in the next two weeks, they will not complete it. Congress will recess at the end of the month and will not return until September 8th.
In a sense this is all a moot point because even if the House did complete the appropriations process, not all of their spending bills could also pass the Senate and President Obama has already pledged to veto the bulk of them.
This is a big fucking failure sandwich that John Boehner ordered.
The next government shutdown approaches.