There was a time when our elected officials, facing a daunting deadline to complete a difficult or unpopular task, would rise to the occasion by saying “failure is not an option”.  For a small subset of our current office holders, failure is not only an option, but appears to be a direct objective. 

The deadline facing Congress as this column is being written is to fund the federal government prior to the new fiscal year, which begins (or began) October 1^st.  As the deadline for this piece is just prior to that, it’s not known if Congress somehow produced a procedural miracle and avoided a government shutdown. At the time of writing it appeared that the status quo of a dysfunctional House Republican Caucus and a general lack of agreement of what would/could/should be added to a “clean” continuing resolution were gumming up the works.

Let’s first address the “clean CR” argument, whereby Congress failing to meet a statutory deadline decides to just give itself a new deadline by saying “We’ll just spend the same thing we’re currently spending until we decide to spend something differently”.  Despite the lack of agreement within the House GOP caucus that we will address next, it’s been clear for some time that Republicans elected to Congress are expected by their voters to begin to rein in spending. 

In the Senate compromise for a CR released Thursday before the weekend deadline, their version of a “Clean CR” added additional funding for Ukraine.  This dirties up the CR a bit as it’s both additional spending and a priority that is not universally shared. 

While I remain on record as supporting military aid to Ukraine as a vital and necessary check on Russian aggression against our closest allies, the White House has yet to outline to the American People the extent of this aid, clear objectives, or if there are limits. 

Most Americans are willing to support aid, but the case needs to be made.  Burying the funding in a CR avoids having to make this appeal, and results in more questions than answers from those skeptical of our involvement.

The House, meanwhile, seems to be coalescing around the idea that border security must be addressed in any CR.  Some are demanding more than just additional money to handle the number of people pouring over our southern border and making a mockery of our asylum process.  They want substantive policy changes in the Biden Administration’s open border policies.

Like with aid to Ukraine, this absolutely deserves a sober and sound debate.  But this is Congress we’re talking about here, where sobriety is as scarce as fiscal responsibility., They are always more than willing to make up for this with extra sound.  It’s full of fury and signifies nothing, but more volume trumps sober policy every day on Capitol Hill.

Which brings us to the House Freedom Caucus, a group well known for generating headlines and pleas for $25 before midnight, but not policy wins on behalf of their party.  Members of this group are more than happy to do whatever it takes to make a personal headline, even when they argue against themselves. 

These members have been actively holding up the individual appropriations bills for months, and now that time has run out, they are criticizing House Speaker McCarthy for having to plan for a continuing resolution – demanding he move the individual bills they have been gumming up instead.

The Freedom Failure Caucus’ main goal is to stop their own party from doing anything. They’re happy to stand on the shoulders of those doing the work to earn and maintain a majority, criticizing those doing the work for not getting everything every “conservative” can imagine at any point in time. 

They’ve now taken to demanding that the old GOP caucus rule of advancing bills that have the support of “the majority of the majority” to only those which can get 218 Republican votes. They then ensure that at least 4 of them will refuse to agree with anything, granting them the failure they desire…that they can then blame on their own leadership.

There was a time when demagogic blowhard grandstanders would have been ignored. Now, this is a business model.  Not only can these folks generate large amounts of small dollar donations this way, but it is a stepping stone to more lucrative grifts.

Politico reports that five of the most vocal members of the Failure Caucus are lining up their next gigs. Seats in the Senate or a Governor’s mansion may be the next stops.

For too many of our elected officials, failure isn’t just an option.  It is unfortunately a path to fail in even bigger offices.   And it will be, until enough of the Republican voters decide that governance actually matters.