Before Congress leaves for the Christmas holiday, it must first pass a new spending bill to prevent the government from shutting down after the current bill runs out Dec. 11. No one wants a shutdown, but the government should be funded the right way — temporarily for now, and for the longer term only after the rightful, newly elected legislators are sworn in.
The early word is that Republicans in leadership want to pass a long-term resolution that would set spending levels through the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, 2015. The measure they envision would reportedly omit spending related to immigration enforcement, which would receive a separate, short-term treatment. The new Republican Congress could then revisit immigration enforcement spending next month in a bid to countervail President Obama’s executive decree.
It is easy to see why this strategy is now being floated. Its goals are reasonable, and again, nobody wants a full government shutdown.
But it’s still a terrible idea to pass a long-term spending bill during a lame-duck Congress. Republicans and conservatives did not just knock on doors, make calls, post yard signs, and donate millions in the recent election so that Harry Reid’s zombie Senate — the one the voters just rejected — could live on for another ten months through whatever last-minute spending bills it is willing to pass.
Congress should instead pass a true omnibus that lasts until February, then return next month to set longer-term priorities and levels of spending. Anything else simply forfeits leverage against a president who is desperate and obviously hungry for more executive power. An immigration fight separated from the rest of federal spending priorities not only weakens Republicans’ hands, but is sure to create an impasse and a partial government shutdown.
Reid’s Senate failed to pass any appropriations bills for fiscal 2015. This is something the new Republican Congress can now take full advantage of, setting the agenda immediately without waiting for next fiscal year. A new spending bill will give the new Congress an extra year to lower the baseline for future years’ discretionary spending and to set the federal government’s new agenda.
If Republicans forfeit this opportunity to concentrate on an immigration fight in the spring, they will be making just the mistake Obama wants. His immigration order is an act of desperation, taken right after his party’s worst election performance among Hispanic voters since the Bush era. Obama is a weak lame-duck president who never had the courage to deal with immigration previously. If Republicans subordinate the larger issue of spending to intra-party disputes over this issue, then Obama has already won.
If the goal of the Republican leadership is to put the immigration issue aside and avoid a nasty confrontation that will harm the party’s 2016 nominee, then a long-term spending deal with Reid’s Senate is not the way to do it. Republicans should fight in the new Congress to rein in the entire budget, and let Obama come to them for concessions.
