Today on “This Week” Speaker Boehner said Stand and Deliver, President Obama!

“We’re not going to pass a clean debt limit increase,” he said. “I told the president, there’s no way we’re going to pass one. The votes are not in the House to pass a clean debt limit. And the president is risking default by not having a conversation with us.”

Now, this seems to be contrary to what we’ve been hearing all week, that there are enough votes between Republicans and Democrats to pass a clean continuing resolution (and presumably debt ceiling hike too) if the Speaker would bring those bills to the floor.

So later Senator Schumer said on the same show

“Well, first, the speaker said there aren’t the votes on the floor to re-open the government. Let me issue him a friendly challenge. Put it on the floor Monday or Tuesday. I would bet there are the votes to pass it,” Schumer said on ABC’s “This Week” appearing just after Boehner. “We have just about every Democrat, 21 Republicans have publicly said they would. There are many more Republicans who have said that they privately would.”

“So, Speaker Boehner, just vote. Put it on the floor and let’s see if you’re right.”

Any bets whether Boehner takes up the challenge?

No, I thought not.

I’m with Josh Marshall here. He cites an article from Byron York, a conservative reporter for the Washington Examiner, which quotes a House Republican as saying there are easily 180 or 190 “moderate” Republicans who would vote for a “clean” continuing resolution, meaning a bill to end the shutdown with no strings attached.

Like Josh, my question is “Where are they?” There may be 180 or 190 who like to be thought of as moderate, but they’ve had plenty of opportunities to vote against the lunatics in their midst and haven’t done so. As Josh says:

A couple days ago, Rep. King (R-NY) was supposedly going to lead a ‘moderate’ revolt of 25 members. But in the end, only a handful voted against the relevant House ‘rule’ and half of those were folks like Bachmann and Steve King from the Crazy Caucus who think the Boehner strategy doesn’t go far enough.

Let me know when they turn up, will you?

I had a doctor’s appointment at Tripler Army Medical Center this morning. Both the VA and the main hospital were fully staffed and expecting to remain so.

Anyone been affected by it so far?

Kevin Drum has it in one short sentence:

The Republican Party is bending its entire will, staking its very soul, fighting to its last breath, in service of a crusade to….

Make sure that the working poor don’t have access to affordable health care.

He goes on to say:

I just thought I’d mention that in plain language, since it seems to get lost in the fog fairly often. But that’s it. That’s what’s happening. They have been driven mad by the thought that rich people will see their taxes go up slightly in order to help non-rich people get decent access to medical care.

I have exceeded my blockquoting limit here, but I can’t say it any better or more succinctly than that. The Republican Party can’t stand the thought of its side paying taxes which might go to help people on the other side have a more decent life.

So the House once again voted to delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act for a year (presumably on the theory that a unicorn will arise and kill it before it comes up for activation then) and strip Congress and its staff from receiving any subsidies they might be eligible for to help pay for their participation in the health care program.

Republicans fumed that the portion of the law grants “special treatment” to Congress. It has become a rallying cry among conservatives, but the reality is less simple. Members and staff are required to drop their existing government plans and buy insurance on the Obamacare exchanges, and the health care law provides them subsidies up to a point — as it provides others who buy from the marketplaces. The GOP amendment would essentially strip them of their employer contribution.

Jeebus, cut off your noses to spite your face, why doncha?

They are zealots who’ve forgotten common sense. There is no other term for them. The President is not going to sign into law a measure which delays or destroys his signature domestic achievement. A Democratically-held Senate is not going to pass a measure which does that. They know this, but they don’t care. They’ve tilted into insanity.