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Notes -
because a few conflicts are coming to a head right now
there is a very slim majority in the House due to laughably idiotic behavior by Party leadership and the NRCC and a small group of representatives see this as an opening to attack two fundamental pillars of Congressional business over the last few decades+
Dictator Speakership Era is in jeopardy - for the last few decades, the speaker of the house has had a shocking amount of power over the business of the house which almost entirely excludes the vast majority of the conference from decision-making and legislating.
Appropriations going through non-Normal process - Appropriations bills haven't gone through the legislatively designated normal process of how they are supposed to be drafted and modified and on what schedule for decades. Instead, they're clusterfucked through another process which is likely illegal but which no court is going to stop it which ends in giant omnibus bills and other sorts of christmas tree bills. Instead of just passing the appropriations bills required by law through the normal process also required by law, they appropriations are done by Continuing Resolutions and giant omnibus bills.
The small group of GOP representatives were able to get concessions which should end the Dictator Speaker Era as well as the Omnibus/Continuing Resolution Era from McCarthy in exchange for McCarthy getting the gavel. Appropriations must be passed through the normal process which means 12 appropriations bills produced by the 12 committees through the normal process and are brought to the floor before the statutory deadline which means no more omnibus bills and no more continuing resolutions. And there were many other smaller concessions. McCarthy broke his promises and used Democrats to do it. The small group revolted and that was the end of McCarthy's speakership.
This presents a big problem for many of the GOP blob who no one has ever heard of; McCarthy brought in A LOT of money and he used control of that money to fund many GOP people to win their seats which they otherwise never would have won. These people are duds, they can't fundraise, and their voters do not particularly like them. Without McCarthy protecting their seats and attacking their primary opponents, their seats are toast. This is A LOT of the caucus. These people are very upset that the smaller group of GOP rocked the boat because they have been living large with McCarthy doing all the work and getting the flack to deliver to donors who keep the gravy-train rolling. Many in the caucus feel ousting McCarthy was a stab in the back of leadership who had worked for decades raising billions and taking flak to do things the vast majority of them wanted anyway.
Some other conflicts which exacerbate the issue is the large and growing divide between the GOP and their voters as well as MAGA vs Establishment GOP; the harder and harder to hide secret of the caucus is that a large portion, maybe even a majority, and definitely party leadership actually really dislike their own voters and MAGA is making it increasingly difficult to maintain the scam of lying to their voters while delivering to their donors which keeps the moneytrain, status, etc., rolling in.
tl;dr: a small group of reps attempting to use their negotiating power given a slim minority to bring down two fundamental pillars for how the House works and has for decades which slammed directly into a large group of their own caucus who rely on the scheming and fundraising to maintain their seats and owe those seats to leadership they feel was backstabbed
It's important to note that this small group was intentionally making it impossible for McCarthy to keep his promise. He was going forward with regular order, the Appropriations committee and relevant subcommittees had reported their bills already by mid-July, but Freedom Caucus holdouts spiked rules votes to begin floor debate on those bills time and time again.
The whole situation was engineered by a group that got to get their names in the headlines off of it. They wanted him to break his promises because then they got to fundraise off of being the scrappy freedom fighters against the duplicitous Establishment. But, by forcing a delay, they put McCarthy in a situation where he had to choose between a shutdown and a CR.
Just like the Left, the Recalcitrants in Congress depend on people being underinformed about how a complex process works so they gin up a self serving narrative.
All twelve bills could have been passed by early August and a unified Republican Conference could have fought a very public and very righteous fiscally conservative battle against Democrats in the Senate and White House through the end of September, boosting their credibility as a serious party of responsible government without risking a shutdown. Instead, they're embarrassing the party and all but guaranteeing the Democrats regain the House next year, all so Matt Gaetz can send out fundraising emails while he votes to kick his own party out of power.
It seems like you’re underrating the possibility that they wanted a shutdown.
Well, what I'm really doing is underrating the diversity of opinion among the Recalcitrants. Chip Roy, although not one of the defenestrators, has consistently been among the recalcitrants on advancing budget bills, but I trust him to be doing what he does for the reasons he says and he would probably have been fine with a shutdown if the budget didn't come out the way he wanted. Gaetz was doing it for attention and fundraising, he thinks he's going to become the next Governor of Florida off of this. Some of the others wanted a shutdown because they seem to think hardball negotiating will get them what they want ( I think Andy Biggs is in this category).
Others may have their own reasons.
Chip Roy is rooting for a shutdown because he wants Greg Abbott to be in charge of US border policy, and right now the most plausible route to that scenario is for the federal government to stop paying the border patrol(with most plausible route #2 being that the Biden admin gives in to all of his demands as a condition of keeping the government open). I think Andy Biggs is in agreement with that policy even if he has a few other demands. Matt Gaetz might be attention whoring, but he might also just be the face of a Biggs/Roy axis who can take a fall if it all blows up.
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Has it been decades? I seem to remember the process being roughly the normal appropriations process up until 2011 or 2012 (can't quite remember which), when they got rid of earmarks.
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