Well, here we are again, running around like chickens with their heads cut off to avoid a government shutdown. The federal government’s fiscal year ends at the end of September, and since budgets and debt ceilings are designed for stupid, tedious, and fiscally responsible people, Congress is once again playing to the political margins and trying to pass another stopgap measure to keep the government running until November 18.
House Republicans convened on Friday to approve the mandatory budget bill, but the prospect of a government shutdown loomed as Democrats said it would go nowhere in the Senate.
On a mostly party-line vote of 219 to 203, the Republican-controlled House approved a bill that would keep the government running through Nov. 18 and provide $3.65 billion in disaster relief during one of the most extreme weather years in U.S. history.
The first version of the stopgap bill failed on Wednesday’s House vote, and with both the House and Senate on recess next week, Speaker Boehner was forced to rally his troops, reports Hill: :
To Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the vote was nothing more than a mulligan. After 48 Republicans opposed his bill on Wednesday, he faced a choice: abandon spending cuts to win over Democrats who withdrew support for the bill, or convince other conservatives that the original bill was the best they could get.
Boehner chose the right flank, adding the consolation of waiving a $100 million loan guarantee program that financed bankrupt energy company Solyndra.
As Speaker Boehner tweeted this morning:
Federal disaster aid is set to end on Monday, and Democrats are using recent hurricanes and floods as a reason not to cut spending:
Democrats en masse opposed the GOP bill because it partially offsets $3.65 billion in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by cutting $1.5 billion for the Department of Energy’s separate manufacturing loan program.
“The bill the House will vote on today is not a fair attempt at compromise. It does not provide the help our fellow Americans need as they try to rebuild their lives after floods, wildfires and hurricanes, and it will be rejected by the Senate,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). in a statement Thursday evening before the House vote.
“I was optimistic that my colleagues from the Republican Party would learn from yesterday’s defeat and move to the middle. Instead, they moved even further towards the Tea Party.”
Again with the “extreme radical” Tea Party excuses! We need to get this country back on a path to fiscal balance, let people keep more of their own money, and stop expanding the federal government. It’s not radical – it’s reality. The way Harry Reid talks, you’d think it’s just that you can’t live without every government program in existence and this type of thinking is slowly but surely taking this country to the brink.
Update: Of course, it’s always the Republicans’ fault. Tell me, Democrats, where is your budget? Also from Hill: :
White House press secretary Jay Carney on Friday criticized Republicans for playing politics with the measure of government spending.
“This is a fundamental responsibility of Congress,” Carney said. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”
Congress is stuck in another impasse on a measure to keep the government funded through November 19. The House had already approved the measure on Friday with GOP support after failing to introduce a similar measure on Wednesday, but Senate Democrats oppose the disaster spending provisions and are expected to reject it.
Update II: It’s time to break the shutdown clocks again because, unsurprisingly, the Senate has not moved on the House-passed continuation resolution, reports National Journal: :
The Democratic-controlled Senate voted to reject a resolution passed by the House early Friday morning, leaving Congress embroiled in another government shutdown game over disaster relief funding as House Republicans threatened to walk out of town.
Majority Leader of the House of Representatives Eric CantorR-Va., wouldn’t say whether the House would go on Friday afternoon for a weeklong recess. House Republicans delayed formally sending a measure to fund the government to the Senate until November 18. Democrats called it an attempt to leave the upper house with a “take it or leave it” proposition.
Senate Majority Leader Harry ReidNevada used procedural tactics in considering the measure and forced a vote to file a bill that would provide $3.65 in disaster assistance to FEMA. The Senate is asking for $6.9 billion, without offsetting cuts elsewhere in the budget.
