Just weeks after political infighting nearly shut down the government, Congress is duking it out again over a spending bill and their battle is threatening yet again to close the government by month’s end.
In a scene repeated several times over the past year, most recently in August, Democrats and Republicans took to the microphones on Capitol Hill Tuesday to accuse each other of playing politics with a budget for the next fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Without it, the government would run out of money on Sept. 30.
This time, the fight is over how much federal disaster relief should be provided to states hit by recent storms, devastating fires and an earthquake. The money, which would be provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is included in a short-term spending bill that would fund the government through Nov. 18. If the two parties can’t agree on the amount of FEMA funding, the short-term bill funding the government will fail.
Like past squabbles over spending, this one includes a looming deadline. With the current budget expiring on Sept. 30 and the House scheduled to be out of session next week in observance of the Jewish Rosh Hashanah holiday, the two parties need to work out a deal by Friday.
It’s only been about seven weeks since Republicans and Democrats agreed on a deal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit by more than $2 trillion, narrowly averting at least a partial government shutdown.
The sticking point this time around amounts to just a fraction of that amount — about $3.2 billion. That’s the difference between the $6.9 billion Senate Democrats and some Senate Republicans voted to spend and the $3.7 billion House Republicans voted to spend. The two sides are also quibbling over whether the disaster relief needs to be offset by other cuts in the budget. In the House, Republicans partially offset the disaster aide by slashing about $1.5 billion from a Department of Energy loan program.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he plans to restore the $1.5 billion in loan money because it will help create jobs. And he’s going to boost the disaster funding back to $6.9 billion when the House sends its stopgap funding measure over to the Senate as early as Wednesday.
Reid took to the podium Tuesday to warn that he’s not so sure the two sides can come to agreement in time to avert a shutdown.
“The Tea Party-driven House of Representatives has been so unreasonable in the past, I don’t know why they should suddenly be reasonable,” Reid said, though he also told reporters that he’s not planning to compromise either. “We are going to continue this,” Reid warned. “We are not going to back down.”
House and Senate Republicans said there would be no shutdown and that the affected states would receive the disaster aid they need.
House Republicans have given no indication that they’re ready to strike a deal either.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said if a shutdown happens, “it’s on Leader Reid’s shoulders because he’s the one playing politics with it.”
