Government Shutdown Fever is back and both Steve King (R-IA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) floated the idea today.
Speaking at the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale, Iowa today, King said Republicans should not unilaterally disarm themselves by taking a shutdown off the table.
“If the president wields his pen and commits that unconstitutional act to legalize millions, I think that becomes something that is nearly political nuclear …,” King said. “I think the public would be mobilized and galvanized and that changes the dynamic of any continuing resolution and how we might deal with that.” [...]
“When we hear some of our leaders say there will be no government shutdown, that’s the political equivalent of saying there will be no boots on the ground,” he said.
Meanwhile, Marco Rubio told Breitbart that Republicans should consider withholding government funding if the president signs an executive order on immigration.
“There will have to be some sort of a budget vote or a Continuing Resolution vote, so I assume there will be some sort of a vote on this,” the Florida Republican told the conservative website Breitbart.com in an interview published Thursday. “I’m interested to see what kinds of ideas my colleagues have about using funding mechanisms to address this issue. Beyond that, I’m not sure if the president is going to make this decision before we go back or after.”
We’ve come to expect the worst from Republican politicians, but the tale of Marco Rubio is one for the history books.
There was a time when Rubio supported a bipartisan effort to pass immigration reform, and while he eventually decided not to support his own initiative, he has now landed squarely in wingnut territory,
Marco Rubio has gone from dubiously supporting reform to being on the same side as Steve “Calves the Size of Cantaloupes” King.