As the government shutdown deadline nears, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is trying to shift the blame to the White House. That doesn't make any sense at all.
As the GOP leader almost certainly knows, this didn’t make any sense. Spending bills that fund the government are ultimately signed by the president, but Biden can’t write and pass appropriations measures on his own. It’s up to Congress — which has the power of the purse — to approve the legislation.
One of the inconvenient details of this mess is that it’d be incredibly easy to avoid a shutdown: House GOP leaders could simply go around their radical flank, strike a deal with Democrats, and keep the government’s lights on. McCarthy has avoided this solution because he assumes, correctly, that it would lead many of his members to try to oust him.
If the main holdouts standing in the way of a solution were House Democrats — the members McCarthy has been ignoring — it might make some sense to think the president could use his influence to twist some arms and apply some pressure. But since the holdouts are McCarthy’s own members, the White House doesn’t have a realistic role to play.
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