House Republicans last week were only able to pass a budget for next year after a revolt in the budget committee over increased military spending forced the leadership to keep the process moving forward with what virtually everyone admits was a parliamentary gimmick . Make no mistake about it: it wasn’t a maneuver but rather a hard-to-miss and almost too-clever-by-half gimmick. Everyone in the GOP caucus seemed to either angry before or after because of what happened and how.

This latest example of dissention in the House Republican ranks was yet another strong rebuke to a GOP leadership that in the two months or so since this session of Congress began has suffered multiple legislative defeats because of its own members.

The defeats have come on a variety of issues and in many ways. They have all weakened Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and especially Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA). Scalise’s ability to count and obtain votes, that is, to do his primary job, has now been seriously, and openly, questioned. Another key aspects of a whip’s job — his ability to get members to change their vote when the leadership needs them — is also in doubt.

This means that Republicans are now in the worst political condition they have been in since the session began just as the budget – one of their most important issues – is about to be debated this week by the full House. Indeed, given what it includes – assumed increases in military spending, tax cuts, domestic spending reductions, Medicare and Medicaid cuts and repealing Obamacare – the budget resolution includes most of the Republican’s meat-and-potato issues and so may well be the most important debate of the year for the GOP.

But these days being important or even critical doesn’t mean that passing the budget this week in the House will be easy or certain for House Republicans. Consider the following:

The GOP leadership is in desperate need of a win and the rank and file knows it. That will encourage some Republican members not to commit to voting for the budget resolution until the absolute last minute to get something in return and may not vote for it at all if the leadership can’t deliver. If a significant number of members do this, the leadership may not have enough votes to be sure the budget will be adopted and, as happened in the committee last week, may have to delay or postpone the debate.

Scalise’s skills are in doubt. No doubt he will try to use the budget resolution to redeem himself by demonstrating he can, in fact, count votes. But there’s also no doubt that Boehner and McCarthy will have Scalise on a very short leash and will need to reconfirm whatever they are being told by the whip’s office. That’s anything but a cohesive team.

The military hawks vs. fiscal hawks fight that broke out for all to see during the budget committee’s markup is not over and is likely to reemerge in some way when the bill is debated on the House floor. The parliamentary gimmick the leadership used to get the budget out of committee angered many GOP members. It will anger them further when the rules committee does what the leadership promised it would do to get the military hawks on board by increasing Pentagon spending.