No Budget Because HealthCare.gov - NYTimes.com After they were blamed for causing a disastrous shutdown, many Republicans seemed to want to get the year's budget fights behind them. As of a few weeks ago, some of them seemed open to relieving the sequester, which is widely hated by lawmakers in both parties, and Congressional appropriators thought they had a chance to enact real spending bills instead of running the government with yet another continuing resolution. But that's looking increasingly unlikely, and the reason is the uproar over the first six weeks of health care reform. Republicans are convinced that they are benefiting from the disastrous rollout of the new law. And they don't want to do anything that might take away attention from the bumbles of the White House. As this morning's editorial in The Times noted, that sense of elation is already dooming immigration reform, and now it is taking a toll on the budget conference that began last month and needs to reach a conclusion by Dec. 13. William Allison, a spokesman for House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, told the National Journal that his boss, who is running the conference, feels no pressure to accomplish anything. "If we don't do anything, the government doesn't shut down, there's not a second sequester that hits, there's not a debt limit, so if we fail to reach an agreement by Dec. 13, the world keeps spinning and everything's fine," Mr. Allison said. "Everything's fine" means that vital programs will continue to suffer dangerous cuts under the sequester, including science and medical research that is being set back by decades. "Everything's fine" will leave the Pentagon with an even bigger cut than it was given last year, infuriating generals and Republican defense hawks. "Everything's fine" spells the end of any hope for investments that might create new jobs or put four-year-olds in pre-school or keep bridges from falling down. This might have bothered mainstream Republican leaders a few weeks ago, back when they were talking about taking back their party from the nihilism of the Tea Party crowd. But then healthcare.gov happened, and then "you can keep your plan." "Our perception is that they don't want to move forward on the budget, jobs, and the economy because they just want to play politics on health care," said the ranking House Democrat on the conference, Chris Van Hollen. As long as they feel ascendant, and the president's poll numbers continue to fall, Republicans will pursue their goal of doing as little as possible.