Working through Christmas
After a stressful, fractious and at times terrifying 2021, rarely has the congressional community more desperately needed a long holiday respite far from the toxic funk of Washington.
Better luck next year. Congress originally planned on wrapping up its Washington business around Dec. 10. Instead, lawmakers and staff members rolled into this month with a pile of must-do items still to tackle: pass the annual defense authorization bill, continue funding the government, prevent a default on the national debt and make at least some progress on President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan.
With obstruction-happy Republicans working to slow progress, Congress’ hopes for fleeing town soon are disappearing faster than cheap wine at a House staff party. This is what happens when Congress operates through brinkmanship, blackmail and punting.
Only under the imminent threat of, say, a government shutdown can Congress push past their partisan games to fulfill their most basic legislative obligations. Even then they often resort to temporary fixes, requiring them to fight the same fights again and again.
This issue was supposed to have been handled in September, but the best lawmakers could manage was a short-term continuing resolution that kept things running at existing spending levels. Some two months later, they are going with yet another temporary fix. On Thursday, the House passed a continuing resolution that will last through Feb. 18. The Senate did the same after scrambling to deal with a coterie of conservatives who had been threatening to force a mini-shutdown unless Congress defunded President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for the private sector.
Republicans’ refusal to help raise the borrowing limit is dishonest and dangerous. Democrats need to stop getting sucked into this recurring game of chicken and start pushing to abolish the debt ceiling altogether.
In the current political climate, it is perhaps too much to expect lawmakers to approach their basic legislative duties more rationally. But if they are going to keep putting the nation through unnecessary, even manufactured dramas, then, yeah, they deserve to spend the holidays toiling over all the stuff they should have gotten done earlier.