Let the drama begin.

How delicious: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FY_2008_U.S._federal_budget

“Earmarks, other spending stripped
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) signaled on December 10 his desire to push a budget package that toed the line on President Bush’s spending recommendations, by stripping lawmakers’ earmarks and funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.[11] The announcement came on the heels of a Bush veto threat to an earlier omnibus spending package offered by Democrats.

Originally slated to contain $520 billion in funds for the federal government, the scrapped plan would have included $70 billion in funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan war and $11 billion for domestic programs. Obey cited a White House resistance to compromise as one reason for withdrawing the package:

“Absent a Republican willingness to sit down and work out a reasonable compromise, I think we ought to end the game and go to the president’s numbers,” Obey said. “I was willing to listen to the argument that we ought to at least add more for Afghanistan, but when the White House refuses to compromise, when the White House continues to stick it in our eye, I say to hell with it.”[11]
According to The Washington Post, Obey’s proposal “would ax about 9,500 home-district and home-state projects worth a total of $9.5 billion.” Some presidential priorities might also be scrapped to keep the bill on-target for Bush’s spending level recommendations, including abstinence education, and “nuclear weapons research and development in the Energy Department, NASA programs and high-technology border security efforts” that critics called “wasteful and ineffective.”[11] “

So at this point I think we have a record, all of Reagan’s and Bush’s shutdowns due to Congress’s failure were in early November. Clinton’s only lasted into mid November. So what I’m deducing here is that W not wanting to be the bad guy in all this is playing it coy by vetoing every bill individually, forcing the Congress to pass continuing resolutions to keep government running at the funding levels of the old budget. So in essence, W has zeroed out or delayed any spending increases Congress wishes to do. A sound strategy in my estimate, this makes Congressional leadership look totally incompetent as they can’t get their act together to pass a veto proof bill. W and the Repubs come out the winners, the Dems demonstrate they can’t even get a compromise through unless accede to the demands of spending restraint which they are loathe to do. W has learned the lesson of his dad and not allow himself to get cornered with the Dems forcing a tax increase down his throat and get blamed for it to boot. It was afterall a Dem lead Congress that increased taxes during Bush Sr. admin.

House Democrats realize how humiliating this all is, so they’re still vowing to make paygo work. Especially embarrassed are the so-called Blue Dog Democrats for whom “fiscal discipline” is a coat of political protection. John Tanner of Tennessee is so upset he says the Senate paygo abdication “is bordering on criminal,” and about 30 Blue Dogs are threatening to vote against AMT repeal without offsetting tax increases. They’d have more credibility if they also opposed the various fiscal gimmicks in the Schip and farm bills, not to mention the 2008 Congressional budget outline that exceeded President Bush’s budget request by $22 billion.

#2, If this isn’t a record, it’s darn close. There was the late 1995 or early 1996 government shutdown that dragged on longer, I think.