On Monday, the NOW with Alex Wagner panel gamed out the most likely scenarios as Republicans and Democrats remain hopelessly divided ahead of a September 30 government funding deadline.
On Sunday, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz—the leading architect of the plan to tie continued government funding to a defunding of President Obama’s health care law—continued to push for the tactic, despite pushback from several members within his own party.
“Republicans are furious with Ted Cruz because he is essentially running for president and he won’t have to suffer the consequences of what he’s doing, while everyone else will,” said Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker.
“There’s no way for Republicans to win,” said National Journal‘s Alex Seitz-Wald. “The most likely scenario is [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid strips the bill, it ends up going back to the House and either Republicans are going to cave and pass it, or [House Speaker] John Boehner’s going to have to think about breaking the Hastert Rule and pass this government funding bill with Democrats.”
Alex Wagner noted that although Cruz and other Republicans are getting pilloried by members of their own party for this flawed strategy, a clean funding bill is hardly a win for Democrats. “We talk about the Republicans not winning and this being a terrible piece of strategy, but they continue to move the goalposts in the bigger picture of where this country is going and what our spending priorities are,” Wagner said, noting that the sequester’s detrimental effects look likely to stay in place, no mater what happens.
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