Grand deals give way to patchwork fixes
Myriad bills left undone will now be in the hands of the 113th Congress.
WASHINGTON cut spending,” Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said on the Senate floor. “But let’s not let that stand in the way.”
The list of unrealized goals from Obama and Boehner’s last attempt at a grand bargain two weeks ago is extensive, particularly when compared with the probable outcome of these final congressional negotiations. Ambitious plans to overhaul the individual tax code, tackle corporate rates, revamp the Medicare program and possibly consider changes in Social Security appear to have given way mainly to a tax increase for big earners.
Members in both the House and the Senate said perhaps that was OK.
“We can’t do the task all at once,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. “I pushed for a big deal, but in this case, this time we can only get the tax piece done; so we need to move, we need to get it done.”
Although Congress appeared Monday to be lurching to a deal to avoid significant tax increases for millions of Americans, the emerging patchwork tax deal would push over a series of fights into the next Congress.
Most pressingly, Congress will have to come together in as early as next month to lift the debt ceiling, which Republicans are already hoping to leverage to eke more spending cuts from Democrats. A similar fight almost led to default in 2011 and damaged the nation’s credit rating.
In March, Congress will spar once again over a short-term spending agreement to keep the government open, the same sort that led to a near shutdown almost two years ago.
It appeared Monday that scheduled spending cuts to the Pentagon and other parts of government — the result of last year’s debt ceiling agreement — will also be kicked into the new year, when Republicans and Democrats will likely repeat the recurring revenues versus spending cuts question.
Because the sharply divided 112th Congress and the White House have repeatedly eschewed large-scale deals in favor of quick fixes, myriad bills left undone will now be in the hands of the 113th Congress set to convene at noon Thursday.
The bills range from a farm bill, which has expired and may result in soaring milk prices; a transportation bill; a funding mechanism to supplement the waning gas tax reserves to meet the nation’s infrastructure needs; and even a measure, once completely uncontroversial, to prevent domestic violence.
Doing business in pieces may end up a more productive formula — in the sense that walking 100 miles will still transport a person without an airplane or a bus — but many outside Congress do not think such halting forward motion should be confused with success.
“That’s the nature of the dysfunction,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton. “For the parties, it gives them temporary cover and to fight again on the issues in the next few months. The parties please their base, but the country does not get a solution.”