Congress to speed up Harvey aid, tackle debt limit

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday facing a daunting to-do list and three months left in the year to show that Republicans can actually get things done. President Donald Trump immediately added a huge complication by rescinding immigration protections for younger immigrants and ordering Congress to come up with a fix.

The immigration issue has defeated Congress’ best efforts in the past and proven enormously divisive for the GOP. But for now there’s not even room for it on the front burner as lawmakers, just back from a five-week summer recess, face a series of more immediate tasks.

First up: Speeding relief aid to Texas and Louisiana in the wake of the Harvey storm. A first $7.9 billion installment was set for House passage today, with leaders hoping for a big bipartisan vote to demonstrate Congress’ support for Harvey’s victims.

That will be the easy part.

GOP leaders also are wrestling with how to raise the government’s $19.9 trillion debt limit, something that must happen by month’s end, at the latest, to avoid a first-ever default on U.S. payments. The administration and GOP leaders were making plans to add the debt limit increase to the Harvey relief bill in the Senate and send it back to the House, a plan that quickly provoked conservative ire and a familiar intramural GOP dispute.

“We are grateful that in Texas the flood waters continue to recede. But here in the swamp, they continue to rise,” fumed GOP Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, referring to Washington, D.C. He made the comments in an interview Tuesday on Fox News Channel.

Despite the conservative outrage, leaders were pressing forward with the plan as a way to sweeten the perennially unpopular debt limit vote. As usual, they planned to rely on Democratic votes to get it over the finish line without conservative support.

And, Congress also must approve new spending by Sept. 30 to stave off a government shutdown. The plan for dispensing with that issue was a short-term extension of existing spending levels, which would kick the funding fight into December. At that point, lawmakers could add more money for Texas and Louisiana and fight it out over Trump’s call for money for a wall along on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We have three critically important things before us right now that we need to do quickly,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said as he opened the Senate session. “Pass disaster relief. Prevent a default so that those emergency resources can actually get to Americans who need them. And keep the government funded.”

There is no time to waste. Federal disaster funds run out on Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is warning lawmakers. FEMA has just $1 billion remaining in its disaster accounts.

In addition to the tasks Congress must do, McConnell also made a pitch for the big issue GOP lawmakers want to address in the remainder of the year: overhaul the U.S. tax code to lower rates for businesses and individuals.