Brian Beutler September 22, 2011, 11:59 AM

To avoid a government shutdown — and he wants to avoid a government shutdown — House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) — has three options. He can move in the Democrats’ direction, and scrap a requirement that disaster relief funds be offset with a partisan budget cut; he can move in the direction of House conservatives and cut more deeply into federal programs — which would violate a July deal he struck with Democrats; or he can convince those wary conservatives to hold their noses and vote for the federal funding legislation that failed on Wednesday evening.

At a Thursday press conference in the Capitol, Boehner made his preference clear.

House conservatives, he said, “can vote ‘no’ but what they’re in essence doing is they’re voting to spend more money. Because that’s exactly what will happen.”

In other words, by opposing Boehner’s funding bill, conservatives are forcing him to negotiate with Democrats who are demanding he remove the “offset” spending cut — a $1.5 billion hybrid vehicle manufacturing incentive.

Democrats are pressing him to strip the offset, pass a clean funding bill, and then separately pass an emergency disaster relief bill that cleared the Senate on a bipartisan basis last week.

Something will have to give. “There’s no threat of a government shutdown,” Boehner promised. But Boehner gave no indication of which direction he plans to move. “We’ll have a conversation about that later. You’ll have the answer when we get there,” he said.

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FEMA, Government Shutdown, John Boehner