The Senate passed a bill late Monday to fund the government until November 18, allowing states to draw disaster payments after the new fiscal year begins Saturday and side-stepping for two months another test of wills that could have resulted in the shut-down of the federal government.
By a vote of 79-12, the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a measure compatible with one approved by the GOP-dominated House last week.
Once the House approves the measure later this week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be allowed to draw down $2.65 billion when the new fiscal year starts. That postpones for two months a showdown over emergency relief funds, but not before Congress added to a growing public antipathy over the legislators’ inability to function effectively.
“Each time this happens, it sort of chips away at the public’s confidence that Congress can do even their most basic duty, which, under the Constitution, is to keep the government running,” said Donald Wolfensberger, director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Lawmakers are keenly aware of their dismal approval rating, which according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll, has sunk to 12 percent.
Senators from both parties on Monday used words including “petty” and “disgusting” to describe the the gridlock.
Congress narrowly averted a shutdown two times earlier this year, the first time in April and again in August, when the parties battled over a plan to cut the nation’s massive debt.
This time, the fight was over disaster relief. This summer’s spate of tornadoes, hurricanes, tropical storms, fires and and the east coast earthquake have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, and FEMA said it will run out of money later this week if Congress doesn’t agree to replenish their coffers.
The two parties had agreed to fund FEMA’s relief efforts through until at least November. They added the funds to legislation that is needed to keep the government operating for a six week while Congress works out a longer lasting budget deal.
But Republicans wanted to pay for $1.65 billion of the FEMA funding by cutting the budget elsewhere, and they targeted for elimination a green jobs program favored by the Democrats.
The parties then engaged in a game of political hot potato, with House Republicans passing a bill with the cuts and Senate Democrats attempting to pass the same legislation, but without those offsets.
Republicans got their way late Monday, when Democrats dropped the extra $1.65 billion after FEMA said it had discovered some extra funds to carry it through the fiscal year that ends this week.
The House is expected to approve the Senate deal within days by voice vote. Lawmakers in that chamber are on a week long recess.
A shutdown crisis is now averted — but only until November 18, when this new round of stopgap funding runs out.
Karlyn Bowman, who analyzes public opinion for the American Enterprise Institute said theses repeated battles could plunge respect for Congress to new depths.
“The level of negativity toward this city is just extra high right now,” Bowman said. “It’s hard to know what happens after a while if Congress continues to have problems performing these very central duties. Do people not show up to vote?”
