The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Another shutdown approaches
Time, solutions in short supply as White House, Congress square off again over spending plans.
WASHINGTON — Despite promises that it won’t come to this, Congress and the White House are charging toward another government shutdown.
The next fiscal crisis could come as soon as Oct. 1 unless a new government spending plan is approved. But with House members having left Wednesday for summer recess and senators soon to follow, that leaves only about 10 legislative days next month to fix the problem, and there are no viable solutions in sight.
President Barack Obama has signaled his intention to bust, once and for all, the severe 2011 spending caps known as sequestration. He’s vowed to reject any GOPbacked appropriation bills that increase government funding for the military without also boosting support for domestic programs such as Head Start preschools and others important to Democrats.
The new Republicancontrolled Congress is also digging in. GOP leaders had vowed to run Congress responsibly and prevent another government shutdown like the one in 2013, but their spending proposals are defying the president’s veto threat by bolstering defense accounts and leaving social-welfare programs to be cut.
The 2016 presidential race is compounding the problem. Several Republican senators vying to become the party’s nominee are hoping to use the budget process to push their agendas — from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s campaign to defund Planned Parenthood to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s attempt to stop the nuclear deal with Iran. House Republicans want to overturn Obama’s immigration actions. Any such policy rider attached to a budget would be a deal-breaker.
GOP leaders are resigned to a showdown. House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, allowed his majority to leave a day early for the long August recess, predicting Congress will have little choice next month but to pass a short-term budget extension to keep the government open. “We’ll deal with it in September,” he said.
And it’s not just the budget. A major highway funding program is on a temporary fix that runs out Oct. 29. And the nation’s debt ceiling will need to be lifted by late fall to avoid a damaging credit default.
The confluence of these deadlines raises the prospects for an all-encompassing year-end accord that could resolve all or most of the issues, but it also increases the risk of a crisis. So far, there has been no visible progress toward any big budget deal.
“We know it’s coming,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the Republican whip. “We’re going to leave that fight until September, October, November, December.”
Obama, in a private meeting with Democrats at the White House in early July, called on Democratic senators to filibuster the GOP’s spending bills and prevent him from having to veto them. While many of the Republican bills have passed the House, most have not been tested in the Senate. Only a defense spending bill has come up for a Senate vote, and it was filibustered.
Democrats are portraying Republicans as skirting their responsibilities, recalling the 16-day partial government shutdown in 2013 when Cruz led Republicans in a failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
“We know that Republicans are experienced in shutting down the government,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “It has been clear for months that the only way Congress will arrive at a responsible budget is by Republicans and Democrats, Senate and House, sitting down together and finding a path forward. Now is the time to negotiate. Not in September, not in October — now.”
The fiscal impasse is infuriating to some lawmakers because everyone has long known that at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, a fresh round of sequester cuts would take effect. Those cuts would affect virtually all areas of government spending.
The cuts were reluctantly agreed to as a lastditch solution to the 2011 budget impasse between Obama and Boehner after tea party Republicans took control of the House. A subsequent bipartisan 2013 deal staved off the most painful reductions until this fall, but lawmakers have waited until the last minute to address the problem.
“That’s the way everything around here works,” said Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho. “It’s like a marriage or a business or anything else — money is always an issue. Republicans and Democrats are hard-wired differently when it comes to money.”