Who Shut Down the Government?

House Republicans?  Senate Democrats?  The President?

Unsurprisingly, the media blames the GOP.  After all, didn’t President Obama say he wouldn’t sign a budget that omitted or delayed funding for   Obamacare?  So, therefore, liberals reason, the refusal of the House to agree to Administration demands means that the Republicans are at fault.

Equally unsurprising is that the public agrees.   Given the media’s supportive narrative, and the public’s general lack of interest and knowledge of national affairs, what opinion would one expect it to hold?  The generally disseminated view propounded by the press, of course.

But there’s a different view.

The Constitution places the authority to initiate government expenditures in the House of Representative.  Not the Senate or with the President.  So the House is duty bound to determine whether spending taxpayers’ funds should occur and for what purpose (Article 1, Section 6). 

The President and his allies complain that it is illegitimate to deprive the Affordable Care Act of funding.  After all, Obama says repeatedly, the electorate ratified the new health care law by re-electing him in 2012.  [Hardly.  The stronger argument is that the President was re-elected despite the unpopularity of Obamacare.  Exit polls had it disfavored 49-44%.]

Republicans, noting that the law’s support has now dropped to 39%, can point to the high-handed manner in which the legislation was approved on strict party laws after then-Senator Brown’s special election victory in Massachusetts cost Senate Democrats their filibuster-proof majority.

They, GOP lawmakers proclaim, are the ones carrying out the public’s wishes, not President Obama and Senate Democrats. 

At the moment, the government is at an impasse.  The Constitution requires that the legislature and the executive (leave aside the possibility of a veto override) work together and approve spending.  Traditionally, the solution to a conflict such as today’s would require compromise.

The President and the Senate have repeatedly declined House offers to do so.  So what is to be done?

Can Obama maintain this posture of intransigence forever?  Of course he can, but he won’t.  The President is the national leader.  Ultimately, he can take credit for what goes right but also is responsible for what doesn’t.

Politically, the White House thinks it’s in a winning position (and the latest polls agree), given how its media allies have characterized the dispute.  But time is not on the President’s side.  The public affected by the loss of services will lose patience.  Obama will heed their pain and a deal will be struck.

So what is the answer to the headline?  The House passed the budget which would have continued government funding and sent it on to the Senate.  Once there, it was rejected.  Accordingly, the President has not been presented with a budget since the Senate would first have to agree to a version approved by the House.  Thus, despite what the media would have you believe, Harry Reid and the Democrats are to blame.