Congressional budget crisis was months in the planning

“The stand by conservatives that led to the current crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort, waged by a galaxy of well-funded groups, to undo President Obama’s health care law," the New York Times reports.

Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan. Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed “blueprint to defunding Obamacare,” signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups.