A government shutdown this fall is unlikely, a policy and budget expert says.
Elected officials streamed back to Capitol Hill after the summer vacation for an abbreviated September session in which feuding Democratic and Republican leaders are trying to prevent a shutdown at month’s end.
The key is passing a temporary spending bill that would fund government agencies into mid-December.
Republicans who run the House may have lousy approval ratings, but they are poised to pad their 34-vote majority and determined to avoid mistakes like last year’s partial government shutdown. That fight was over implementation of President Barack Obama’s health care law.
The Senate is sure to go along if that measure is kept free of objectionable add-ons.
Stan Collender, a Forbes contributor who has a graduate degree in public policy and worked for decades on on the staffs of the House and Senate Budget Committees, says that it’s extremely unlikely another shutdown will happen.
He says that two continuing resolutions will probably be passed, the first to fund government agencies through mid-December and the second to fund the agencies through mid-March, if the Republicans win control of the Senate, or possibly through the full year if they don’t.
But he points out that the continuing resolutions are only needed if the officials from both parties can’t pass appropriations. He believes they can’t.
“Yes, both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and self-appointed tea party leader Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) have both talked openly about the strategic and political desirability of a shutdown. And, yes, there are still red meat congressional Republicans that think a shutdown will demonstrate a take-no-prisoners attitude that will increase GOP turnout in November,” he said.
“But, as campaigning ended in August and legislating began in September, McConnell and Cruz backed away from their pro-shutdown statements. The House Republican leadership is especially eager to avoid a shutdown this fall that will remind independents and moderate Republicans just a month or so before the election of one of the lowest points in the congressional GOP’s approval rating of the past few years.
“The House Republican leadership wants to move quickly on a continuing resolution to quash any shutdown efforts. The White House has backed off taking any executive action on immigration – the issue that is most likely to re-strengthen talk about a shutdown – until after the election. The Congressional Budget Office has reported that sequestration is not likely this year at current levels so no additional reductions have to be found.
In this Sept. 9, 2013 file photo television news lights await the start of activity on Capitol Hill in Washington as both houses of Congress return to full legislative session. Lawmakers are streaming back to Capitol Hill after this year’s summer vacation for an abbreviated September session in which feuding Democratic and Republican leaders promise action to prevent a government shutdown while holding votes aimed at defining the parties for the fall campaign. Republicans control the House and want to pad their 17-vote majority, so they intend to follow this simple rule: first, do no harm. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
“This indicates that nothing even borderline meaningful will happen this fall as far as the federal budget is concerned. There will no budget deal, nothing on taxes, at best short-term non-policy extensions of some laws and nothing on appropriations other than a simple straight-line extension of virtually all current funding levels.”
House Republicans say they plan votes aimed at drawing attention to legislation they say would boost jobs and energy production.
“We’re set up to paint a very stark contrast between ourselves and the Democrats who run Washington — if we take advantage of it by getting our work done and getting our message out,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told colleagues in a conference call last week.
Boehner said that message — “our closing argument,” he called it — would focus on ways to get people back to work and“ restore opportunity” for Americans.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seems most intent on getting endangered incumbents from Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina back campaigning as soon as possible.
He is planning to adjourn the Senate by Sept. 23 after dispensing with the spending measure and holding votes — destined to lose — on Democratic planks such as raising the minimum wage and blocking the flow of unlimited, unregulated campaign cash from the wealthy, including the billionaire Koch brothers.
Boehner is looking to settle a split among Republicans over reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, which provides credit guarantees that help foreign buyers purchase U.S. exports such as Boeing airplanes and heavy equipment built by Caterpillar.
Many conservative Republicans, including House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas, oppose extending the bank’s authority. But Democrats and a host of business-friendly Republicans may have the upper hand.
GOP aides said it’s likely that an interim deal would extend the bank until perhaps early next year.
Also in play is a freeze that prevents state and local governments from taxing access to the Internet.
Under current law, the freeze expires Nov. 1, exposing Internet users to the same kind of connection fees that often show up on telephone bills. Legislation to extend the tax moratorium is expected to be attached to the must-do spending bill, according to senior House GOP aide.
The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about internal party deliberations.
Republicans and Democrats are clamoring for legislation authorizing Obama to use military force against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. But the abbreviated session and a lack of consensus raise doubts about whether any congressional action is possible.
Obama plans to meet with congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday and give a speech Wednesday as he begins laying out a strategy for fighting the Islamic State threat.
Some lawmakers say the president has the power to act under the 1973 War Powers Resolution and no new permission is necessary. Several Republicans say they are unwilling to grant Obama blanket authority without a detailed strategy from the administration.
The issue that dominated lawmakers’ attention in the final days before recess — the crisis of unaccompanied children at the border with Mexico — has faded because their numbers have dropped sharply in the hot summer months. Congress never came to agreement on Obama’s emergency spending request to deal with the matters, and there’s unlikely to be an effort to revisit it.
With the list of must-do items so short, expect votes aimed at motivating each party’s core supporters.
In a memo to Republican lawmakers last week, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., outlined some politically motivated pieces of the GOP’s September agenda, including votes on bills to promote energy production and ease taxes and regulations on businesses.
Reid planned a test vote Monday on a symbolic but futile attempt to amend the Constitution to give Congress the power to set stricter limits on campaign cash.
Reid said last month that he may force new votes on failed measures to raise the minimum wage, make college more affordable and guarantee contraception coverage despite the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision that said employers with religious objections could opt out of the new health care law’s birth control mandate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
