Time is running out for spending bill

Government shutdown looms again Jan. 19

WASHINGTON – No one wants to shut down the government — or so congressional leaders in both parties keep telling us.

And yet here we are again, counting down the days until federal money runs dry for everything from the National Parks to food safety inspections to hotlines for veterans.

This time, the deadline is midnight Jan. 19. In the past five years, Congress has passed 15 short-term spending bills, setting up one funding emergency after another.

“No corporation would imagine failing to meet the budget deadline, and yet the biggest economy in the world does routinely,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan group that advocates for fiscally responsible policies.

The House and Senate used to pass one spending bill at a time, working across party lines to set funding priorities for space exploration, housing assistance, scientific research and myriad other programs.

Now, it seems that all lawmakers can do is pass short-term, stop-gap spending bills that push hard decisions a few weeks or a few months down the line. And then they do it all over again.

“In the current environment, simple things are hard, and hard things are near impossible,” said Miguel Rodriquez, a former Obama White House aide now an official with the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

“We thought in ’95 and ’96, (when) we had two shutdowns, that you’d never see them again because the political results were so bad for Republicans,” said Stan Collender, a federal budget expert. “Now it’s kind of become standard operating procedure.”

That’s in part because compromise on both sides is considered “collaborating with the enemy,” Collender said.

That was on display during the last government shutdown in 2013, when House GOP firebrands forced a fiscal showdown with President Obama over their efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act. That led to a 16-day shutdown.

It’s also because Congress has become so polarized that lawmakers can barely agree on anything; spending bills are often the only legislation with a real chance of passage, so lawmakers use them to wage war over everything else.

Abortion, health care, and now immigration, have all become flash points in fights that would otherwise just be about keeping the government open.

Plus, federal spending itself has become a hot-button issue, in large part because of the growing national debt. In 2011, Congress created a “super committee” charged with finding $1.2 trillion in debt reduction over the following decade. The bipartisan panel ended in stalemate.

So again, Democrats and Republicans have to agree on legislation to lift the spending caps before they can start negotiating the details of a bill to fund the government. That means Congress will probably not meet its Jan. 19 deadline — instead passing another short-term spending bill while they continue to negotiate.

“In the current environment, simple things are hard, and hard things are near impossible.” Miguel Rodriquez

POOL PHOTO Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Republicans face battles with Democrats over abortion, health care and immigration.