The funding bill has not yet passed, so is a shutdown possible? Will Congress go to the brink again? Yes, it is possible.
Thursday night, the House, on its second try, passed a short-term Resolution to continue funding the government until November 18, but not for the balance of the fiscal year ending next September The bill passed 219-203 six Democrats mostly from disaster-stricken states joined Republicans voting in favor. Twenty-four Tea Party Republicans voted against the bill.
The bill contained a poison pill that Republicans knew Democrats could not swallow. They off-set part of the disaster relief by cutting $1.5 billion in funding for a previously authorized green energy program. Cutting it will kill jobs. As a result, the bill is most likely dead in the Senate.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said of the House Resolution: “The bill…is not an honest effort at compromise. It fails to provide the relief that our fellow Americans need as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of floods, wildfires and hurricanes, and it will be rejected by the Senate. I was optimistic that my House Republican colleagues would learn from their failure yesterday and move towards the middle. Instead, they moved even further towards the Tea Party.”
The House is scheduled to leave today for a week’s vacation, just three weeks after their 5-week vacation in August, and Republican Leader Cantor said they would not stay over. This will make it impossible to pass a bill by the deadline unless they reconsider. Reid said the Senate was ready to stay in session next week, canceling its scheduled recess.
Republicans appear they will not compromise. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said: “I urge the Senate to quickly pass this bill so we can send it to the president and keep our focus on the American people’s top priority: jobs. This common-sense measure cuts spending for the second year in a row and protects our struggling economy from the uncertainty of a government shutdown.
Disaster Relief one issue between House and Senate
The House GOP bill provides $3.6 billion for disaster aid, of which about $1.1 billion would be offset. The Senate passed its own disaster relief measure last week, with the help of 10 Republicans that would provide FEMA with nearly $7 billion to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. The Democrats feel strongly that FEMA needs to be fully funded to pay for all the recent disasters.
Boehner could not get enough Republican votes to pass the bill Wednesday. He had two choices: modify the disaster relief offsets to compromise with Democrats insuring passage in both the House and Senate, or to appease the Tea Party Republicans, pass it in the House and make the bill more unpalatable to the Senate. He chose partisan politics rather than compromise by adding an additional $100 billion in spending off sets to disaster relief to attract 24 Tea Party Republican votes.
Disaster relief is only part of the bill. It also contains the funding to keep the entire government from shutting down like it did under Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990’s. That had serious repercussions for Republicans. Eric Cantor is trying to shift the blame for disaster relief from the House to the Senate. “If Senate Democrats kill the House bill, then I guess Harry Reid will have to bear the burden of denying disaster ... victims the money that they need," Cantor charged.
Cantor is the one who originally insisted disaster relief be off set. Republican Governors of states decimated by the recent disasters have blasted him and Congressional Republicans for taking that stand.
Spending cuts to green jobs programs will kill jobs, and that is unacceptable to Democrats. "This bill is an embarrassment," Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said. "This bill is not worthy of this Congress." Rep James McGovern (D-MA) added, "This House is badly broken. This Republican leadership is out of touch. This process is a disgrace."
The two parties in Congress are back to the same kind of brinkmanship experienced over the debt ceiling bill in July. Leaders of both parties promised to avoid this brinkmanship over a government shut down, but Republican Tea Party members never did. Tea Party Republicans were disappointed that the U.S. raised the debt ceiling. Their core beliefs have not changed.
The world will be watching and the clock is ticking.
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