Republicans want to go it alone on ICE funding. It might be a slippery slope.

If last year's Republican megabill served as Congress' gateway drug to party-line government funding, the GOP's latest spending plan makes clear it was habit-forming.

Nine months ago, Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to skirt a Democratic filibuster and enact more than $280 billion for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. It shattered conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill that reconciliation's special power couldn't — and shouldn't — be used to circumvent the across-the-aisle work Congress does each year to fund federal agencies.