John Boehner, Barack Obama and Harry Reid are major players in the budget negotiations. | AP Photos How a shutdown could happen

Neither party says it wants a government shutdown.

But the path to a compromise is so tricky, neither party can rule it out.


Republicans say any short-term agreement must include spending cuts. Democrats say, no way.

House Speaker John Boehner’s dug in, with a freshman class in no mood to back down. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s equally intransigent. President Barack Obama has shown little appetite to play referee publicly — so far anyway.

And if there’s any reason to think a shutdown really might occur, it’s this: Both parties think they can win.

How can these competing views be reconciled in time to keep the lights on after the government’s money runs out March 4?

Maybe they can’t. Here are five reasons the government could close it doors:

Boehner held hostage

The new tea party-backed freshman class came to Washington to cut spending. Period. And they’ve joined forces with old-line conservatives in the Republican Study Committee to form an immovable bloc on the issue.

As a whole, that dominant faction of the GOP doesn’t like government much. So if the choice is to keep the same government running at the same rate or to shut it down briefly, some are sure to pick shutdown.

Republican leaders say they’re not even thinking about suspending government activities, and they’re clearly worried about the political consequences of being blamed for a shutdown. But they are hostage to the will of their caucus.

Boehner and Co. already ran into that wall once when they had to retreat after releasing a package of cuts that conservatives deemed too paltry. The freshmen and the RSC know not to expect a deal as sweet as the $61 billion in budget cuts the House passed Saturday, but they’ll demand some funding be sliced even in a compromise measure to keep the government afloat.

“If my Republican leadership asks me to vote for a budget, even a two-week budget, that doesn’t have spending cuts, I will say no and I will shut down government,” freshman Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh told constituents at a coffeehouse meeting Saturday, according to the Palatine Patch, a local online newspaper.

Reid won’t budge

Senate Democratic leaders aren’t looking to compromise either.

If Congress fails to pass a spending bill by March 4, Democrats see no reason to agree to any spending cuts in a stopgap measure while they negotiate the longer-term bill. That’s just not the way it’s been done in the past, they say, so there is no reason start now.

“There should be one set of negotiations that produce a compromise that both sides agree to,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide. Since “they supported these funding levels in the past, it is a reasonable position to have to continue that level of funding while we negotiate the longer-term [bill].”

Democrats say they can argue that they’re serious about reducing the budget, because they endorsed a five-year cap on discretionary spending last week. They also came up with a new talking point during a closed-door caucus meeting: Since Democrats support government spending at the 2010 levels, which is $40 billion less than the president’s request for 2011, they can argue that they want to spend less, too.

Democrats think they can hold the high ground, charging Republicans with pushing an irresponsible budget with cuts so deep that their own members couldn’t support them.

Just like Boehner may need to play to his conservative rank and file, “Reid may also need to show he can stand up to the tea party,” said Stan Collender, a longtime budget analyst.

Where’s Obama?

The X factor in any budget negotiation is the president.

But with less than two weeks to go before a possible shutdown — and Congress out of session for most of that time — Republicans say Obama and his aides aren’t talking to GOP leaders about a short-term fix.

Boehner gave a flat “no” late Friday when asked whether he had any contact with the White House on the matter. Over the weekend, one of his aides said there’s no staff-level discussion either. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman said he’s not aware of any White House contacts on a stopgap bill either.

The Obama team sees things differently.

“The White House has been in frequent contact with Republican leaders on the whole range of issues confronting us. As part of that process, (chief of staff) Bill Daley and Speaker Boehner had dinner last week,” a senior White House official told POLITICO. “Meanwhile, with regard to the CR, it’s important to note that the House needs to consult with the Senate, since the Senate must pass a bill, too.”

Boehner declined to say whether he had talked to Reid about it, suggesting there has been some cross-Capitol discussion.

And administration budget officials are in constant contact with House and Senate Appropriations committees throughout the year.

Obama’s team is putting out its message publicly, with budget director Jack Lew telling reporters the president wants to avoid a shutdown. Obama also threatened to veto the House GOP’s spending plan, which congressional Democrats took as a sign he’s on their side.

Still, Republicans are positioning themselves to point fingers at the White House if there’s a shutdown.

Republicans think they can win this round

In other words, this battle isn’t a redux of 1995, the last time the government shut down and Republicans got blamed. Times are different.

Republicans rode into office in November on a mandate to restrain the government. Unemployment is high, and voters are nervous about big deficits. Nations, such as Greece and Ireland, have teetered on default.

Plus, the personalities are different. Republicans say Obama lacks the political skills of former President Bill Clinton, who managed to turn that shutdown into a victory for Democrats. At the same time, Boehner isn’t as polarizing as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

And the party won’t rely on the mainstream media outlets to tell its side of the story. Fox News, the Internet and talk radio — all of which were limited in influence the last time around — can serve as the GOP’s megaphone in a way that ABC, NBC and CBS didn’t back then.

“What they needed was a compliant monopoly press. That is gone,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, referring to Democrats in 1995. “We need to make it clear we are trying to pass a budget, they are doing everything to avoid budget cuts and they are trying to cause a crisis to avoid budget cuts. I don’t think they will be able to do it and get away with it.”

The drumbeat of support from conservative leaders has also risen steadily in the past week.

Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips, in an alert to his members, called on Republicans to show “courage” and “shut the government down.”

Democrats see victory, too

For all the effort Democrats have put into portraying Republicans to be hot on the idea of a shutdown, it’s really Democrats who are talking much more about it — almost incessantly.

Why? It’s quite simple: The last time budget fighting let to shutdowns, in late 1995 and early 1996, a new Republican majority tested a Democratic president entering the stretch run of his first term. Gingrich lost the public relations war to Clinton — and badly. Many Republicans aren’t anxious to reprise that history.

Every time a Democratic leader says Republicans want a shutdown and that it would be bad for the country, listen closely for the clause that follows: Often it’s a veiled mention of 1995.

By talking about a shutdown — and saying it’s Republicans who want one — Democratic leaders are making sure to position themselves for the blame game that would surely ensue.

The top House Democrat, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said last week that it would be “a failure” on Boehner’s part if the government runs out of the authority to spend money.

“History shows you don’t want to shut down government,” Connecticut Rep. John Larson, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said Friday of the 1995 impasse.

For many reasons, the parallels are limited. But if history is the Democrats’ guide, they believe they’ll win again.