Unbelievable, right? That the Senate majority leader would continue follow up deception and betrayal with abject, preemptive surrender. That McConnell would give up hard-won spending caps that actually worked for… well, for nothing. Not only is it not unbelievable it is guaranteed.

Senate Majority Leader [mc_name name=’Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000355′ ] (R., Ky.) said Wednesday that Republicans would “inevitably” enter into discussions with the White House later this year over raising federal spending limits, reviving a debate within the GOP.

Those limits, set in a 2011 budget agreement, imposed strict caps on overall spending levels for a decade. They triggered the across-the-board cuts known as the sequester in 2013 and are poised to cap spending for the next fiscal year at levels neither party likes. So far, GOP leaders have said little about how they might reach a longer-term budget agreement with President Barack Obama this winter.

…

“We are inevitably going to end up in negotiations that will crack the Budget Control Act once again,” Mr. McConnell said.

If you want to delve into how McConnell’s thought processes work take a gander at this:

Passing a clean con­tinu­ing res­ol­u­tion in the next few weeks, which Mc­Con­nell again em­phas­ized should not in­clude meas­ures favored by con­ser­vat­ives to end fund­ing for Planned Par­ent­hood, “will give time for us to en­gage with the ad­min­is­tra­tion in de­term­in­ing how much we’re go­ing to spend and where we’re go­ing to spend it” later this year, he said.

Though he called it “un­for­tu­nate,” Mc­Con­nell said his warn­ing was born of prac­tic­al­ity. Demo­crats blocked sev­er­al spend­ing meas­ures earli­er this year, telling Re­pub­lic­ans that they would not pass any new fund­ing bills un­less the ma­jor­ity agreed to turn back se­quest­ra­tion cuts on nondefense pro­grams. And, Mc­Con­nell said, Pres­id­ent Obama is “in a key po­s­i­tion” to veto any new spend­ing bills that al­low se­quest­ra­tion cuts to go through as planned.

This is just inconceivable. All McConnell has to do is pass continuing resolutions. This would actually shrink the federal budget as a percent of GDP. It would also keep the government running so McConnell doesn’t come down with a case of night terrors worrying about a shutdown (like the one which won the Senate for the GOP in 2014). Why would he even give Obama spending increases as we go into an election year?

But McConnell has come to the conclusion that progress is measured by process not by outcome. He doesn’t care about what happens to the nation, he just cares that there is an orderly process for sending us all to perdition.

By the way, do you know who else was in favor of removing spending caps? [mc_name name=’Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000146′ ].

On the other hand, we at least can say this is not Failure Theater.