Office of Management and Budget

The surprising thing is not that the federal government has shut down. It would have been surprising if it did not. Each side thinks it has the cards and that it has put the other in a bad position. The result is that the budget feud could last for months, ending with a temporary armistice that satisfies no one. There is little incentive for either side to shut down the shutdown. Washington Post columnist Paul Kane notes that most Senators have little reason to compromise: “very few senators feel the political pressure that usually comes with calamitous events like a federal agency shutdown. Most sit in safe seats, many with reelection campaigns a distant concern.

The GOP will take control of the House of Representatives in January. Beyond the current debate over who will lead the party's new majority — will Representative Kevin McCarthy become speaker? — Republicans have to determine which wars to wage with the Democrat-controlled Senate. Chief among these will be budgetary battles. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that it's likely Congress will pass a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government until January, rather than the larger ominous bill floated by Democrats that would last until the end of the fiscal year. This means the newly GOP-controlled House will be thrust into a debate over the federal budget immediately after taking office. Luckily, they don't have to start from scratch.

Neera Tanden will not be the next director of the Office of Management and Budget. The Biden administration quietly withdrew Tanden’s nomination last night, finally facing up to the daunting odds of her being confirmed. Accounts of this ill-fated nomination vary. Some on the right see Tanden as a sacrifice to distract from the greater threat of HHS nominee Xavier Becerra, described by Nebraska’s Ben Sasse as a 'culture war supersoldier'. The press, inclined to view the world through a Kremlinological lens, interprets it as an indictment of White House chief of staff Ron Klain’s leadership. Klain was by all accounts Tanden’s biggest supporter in the West Wing and shares many of her conspiratorial and bombastic tendencies, especially on Twitter.