As Federal Shutdown Nears, Fingers Pointing at Republicans

UPDATE: New ABC/Washington Post poll shows similarly bad polling numbers for Republicans on the eve of a shutdown:

Republicans’ weaker standing stems from lower marks from political independents but also fellow Republicans.

Only about a third of independents approve of Obama’s work on the budget (34 percent), but an even smaller 21 percent support congressional Republicans (congressional Democrats fall in the middle at 27 percent).

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No real surprise here, as CNN reports:

The Democratic-led Senate on Monday afternoon rejected a proposal by the Republican-led House to delay Obamacare for a year and repeal a tax on medical devices, increasing the chances no deal to avert a shutdown would be reached.

House Speaker John Boehner now must decide how to respond with the Senate again rejecting attempts to halt Obamacare. He could put a "clean" spending provision to a vote…

As we've mentioned previously in this space, polling has been clear for weeks that Americans will blame Republicans in the event of a government shutdown:

A new CNN/ORC poll shows that Americans are not happy about the prospect of a shutdown, which is happening because Congress has been unable to pass a budget for the new fiscal year that begins Tuesday.

According to the poll, 68% of Americans think shutting down the government for even a few days is a bad idea, while 27% think it's a good idea.

And it appears most Americans would blame congressional Republicans for a shutdown: Sixty-nine percent said they agreed with the statement that the party's elected officials were acting like "spoiled children." [Pols emphasis] Democrats, however, weren't far behind: Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they too were acting like spoiled kids.

There is still time for House Republicans to do something besides just try to please their Tea Party masters. It will be interesting to see if House Speaker John Boehner can appeal to reason before a shutdown is implemented, or if he has just given up and, in effect, ceded leadership to Sen. Ted Cruz.

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