Hostage Drama

[ProSense]

Josh Marshall: Hostage Drama

With negotiations still at a standoff, House Republicans are preparing a one-week stop gapping spending measure to keep the government open for a single week. But the price is roughly half a trillion dollars of program cuts on an annualized basis. So the aim is present Democrats and the White House with cuts they can't accept and force them to be the ones who 'shut down the government.'

This is being presented as a clever ploy. And perhaps it is. But if my memory serves me right this is actually pretty similar to the ploy they used in 1995 and which worked so well for them.