Analysis: Ending standoff: Options, but little will

WASHINGTON – With no end in sight to the partial government shutdown, the prevailing questions across the country are when and how does this bad movie end?

Veterans of the 1995 Clinton/Gingrich shutdown say they see some ways out of this seemingly intractable situation that could enable congressional Republicans, Democrats and the White House to reopen the government and save face without the perception that each totally caved in to the other side's demands.

None of the scenarios is easy, they say, and would require a will that players in this drama have thus far not shown. Former Rep. Jim Nussle, an Iowa Republican and House Budget Committee chairman who was lieutenant to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., is in a pool guessing when the shutdown will end. He declined to reveal his estimate, other than to say it's lengthy.

"Given the current hand, … I will tell you that this is as challenging as I've ever seen," said Nussle, who also served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush. "We have people in Washington who are really good at getting attention, not at governing."

But they have to do something. Here are some of the options:

• Republicans in the House of Representatives relent and allow a clean, short-term continuing resolution to fund the government — without provisions to defund or kill the Affordable Care Act — to reach the floor for a vote.

In the House, the magic number to passage is 217, and it appears that a clean funding bill could reach that powered by at least 19 votes from moderate Republicans and old bulls in the party who have grown tired of their Tea Party colleagues.

"If you've got 30 to 40 Republicans who aren't willing to open the government, then it's up to the Republican leadership to find votes to open the government," said former Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois. "Essentially, it will come down to the idea that there are a majority of the 435 members of the House that want the government open."

But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, thus far has resisted putting a clean funding plan on the floor. To do so, without getting something tangible in return, could further splinter the House Republican caucus, jeopardize Boehner's speakership, and prompt primary election challenges from Tea Party and conservative candidates against Republicans who support a clean spending measure, according to political analysts.

"As in '95, it's about politics, people's egos and power," said LaHood, who was in the House during the 1995 shutdown and left Congress to become President Obama's first-term transportation secretary.

LaHood said Obama has to make it worth Boehner's while to move a clean spending plan. One way of doing that is guaranteeing serious talks with Republicans about the health care law, he said.

"But Republicans have to come to the table with some serious ideas on how to fix it, not kill it," LaHood said. "That's the way forward."

• Approve short-term spending measures for certain agencies. This would buy Republicans and the White House time to iron out their differences while keeping some key government agencies operating. The Republican-controlled House has tried — and failed — to push through mini spending measures to reopen the National Park Service, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. The White House rejected the overtures as "piecemeal efforts," a sentiment share by Nussle and some other Republicans.

• Revisit a "grand bargain." Instead of just focusing on a short-term spending deal, Republican congressional leaders and Obama should go long and pursue a multi-trillion-dollar package of spending cuts and tax increases that would include revamping the tax code, addressing entitlement programs and altering or replacing the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.

"If the deal were big enough and worth doing, maybe Boehner could bring it back to the House and pass it with Democratic support," Bixby said. "It could be a package that appeals to the centers of both parties."

Of course, all of these options are contingent upon all sides having the will to compromise, something that isn't easy in today's superheated 24-hour news cycle, according to Paul Begala, a former Clinton adviser.