The Shutdown Party: Our view

The Editorial Board | USATODAY

As the government shutdown loomed, many Americans did what comes naturally in matters regarding Washington: They ignored it.

Now that the shutdown has happened, many people are inclined toward a second default position: Blame everyone.

Both positions fit the dismally low view that Americans have of government in general, and Congress in particular.

In this case, however, the "they're all bums" reaction is off-base. This shutdown, the first in 17 years, isn't the result of two parties acting equally irresponsibly. It is the product of an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, controlled by a disaffected base that demands legislative hostage-taking in an effort to get what it has not been able to attain by the usual means: winning elections.

Call it the Tea Party shutdown. The group will wear the badge proudly.

Pressed by this uncompromising fringe, Republicans leaders in the House are making demands that are both preposterous and largely unrelated to budgetary matters in return for keeping government running. Most absurdly, they want President Obama to undermine the health care law that he ran on in 2008 and 2012, and now considers his signature domestic accomplishment.

No president of either party could accept that kind of badgering. No president should.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, knows this. He's ordinarily a pragmatist. He knows that Republicans, controlling only one chamber of Congress, have no mandate. He also saw what happened to his party the last time it forced a shutdown, in the mid-1990s, when Newt Gingrich was speaker. The public rebelled, and Gingrich backed down. But the Tea Party's tactics have traction, and now Boehner is trapped.

With outside interest groups threatening primary challenges to lawmakers deemed insufficiently conservative, he'll be punished for compromising. But if the shutdown lasts long enough to slow the economy or, worse, if it is prelude to the country defaulting on its debt — the next threat on the GOP agenda — the party is likely to pay dearly because the public will pay dearly.

The question for the GOP now is how its more mainstream elements can regain control. Somehow, the party needs to get back to the model of Ronald Reagan, who was plenty conservative but understood that leadership is less about issuing ultimatums than about offering a compelling vision and working patiently to achieve it.

More immediately, the party needs to get out of the hole it is digging for itself and the nation. That will require Boehner to allow the House to vote on a bill to fund the government without any Obamacare amendments. Such a measure would likely pass with votes from Democrats and pragmatic Republicans, ending the shutdown and leaving Obamacare to succeed or fail on its own.

Yes, that would be a tough call for Boehner, but he has allowed several measures to pass without backing from a majority of Republicans, including last year's "fiscal cliff" deal and aid for Hurricane Sandy victims.

Whether and when Boehner will permit such a vote remains to be seen, but as the shutdown drags on and the toll on the economy mounts, the public will have little trouble seeing where the blame is properly laid.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.



