Op-Ed

US News & World Report: House and Senate Punted on Solving Complex Issues to Avoid Shutdown

Congress needs to solve a puzzle of problems in order to avoid a government shutdown.

Jan 19, 2018 | 6 min read | Print Article

Originally published on January 19, 2018 in U.S. News & World Report

Another potential government shutdown looms. If I sound like a broken record, well, that’s because this is an old story told far too often in recent years.

Let me first dispense with the obvious but always worth repeating points about the futility of government shutdowns:

Shutting down the government is unbelievably inefficient and costs money.
Shutting down the government hurts economies that include federal workers and facilities.
Shutting down the government reinforces the public’s concerns that Congress doesn’t know how to do their job.

Now let me turn to the reasons that the government may shut down this weekend. The current legislation keeping the government open, a “Continuing Resolution” or CR, keeps the lights on until Friday, Jan. 19. The House passed a CR that would extend funding until next month but it is still unclear whether the Senate will follow suit. Continuing resolutions are an extremely inefficient way to fund a complex government because they are basically holding patterns that keep programs funded at last year’s levels. There are a few “anomalies” to this rule, but that’s basically what happens.

The current puzzle of problems Congress can’t seem to get solved is more complicated than simply figuring out what to increase and what to cut in the appropriations bills. Let’s take a look at the variables at play this week and for the next month:

More than a quarter of the way through the fiscal year, Congress still has to set spending levels for the year. They don’t want to go along with levels dictated by the Budget Control Act of 2011, because they represent a “few billion dollars” haircut from 2017 spending levels. They want to come to a bipartisan agreement about how much money to spend.
There are deadlines looming on two politically contentious issues – what to do about the expiration of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program in March and the reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Both programs have complicated bipartisan support, in that they are high political priorities for many Democrats, but many Republicans also want to see solutions put into place.
Also pending is the supplemental disaster bills to provide support from communities still reeling from Harvey, Irma and Maria.
The National Flood Insurance Program authorization expired Sept. 30; it has been regularly extended tied to the CR. If it lapses, home sales that rely on flood insurance availability are canceled.
And the president has repeatedly indicated that now is the time to commit to his proposal to build a wall on the southern border (despite the many reasons this is a bad and unaffordable idea).

EDITORIAL: Biden’s sea of red ink

Most congressional observers did not think the month between the last continuing resolution in December and now would be enough time to come to address all of these problems, but it seemed likely they would address at least one or two – maybe set spending levels, allowing the appropriation committees to move forward, maybe strike a compromise between immigration and border security or identify a solution to the Children’s Health Insurance Program funding. And there was movement on all of those fronts – a promising bipartisan negotiation on immigration and border security and discussion of a full 6-year reauthorization of the children’s health program.

EDITORIAL: Biden’s sea of red ink

So what is happening? Once again, it goes back to basics.

Congress can’t find points of substantive agreement, in part because they don’t seem to be trying to. The House punted on immigration, but added the Children’s Health reauthorization to their bill. The Senate has gone back and forth for 10 days (helped or hurt by the president, depending on your perspective) about how to get an immigration deal on the spending bill. But now that we are at the final moment, compromises that were on the table are no longer in the mix. So it looks likely the Senate does not have the votes to pass the House bill, and with the House leaving Washington, a shutdown seems likely.

I’ve also heard leadership is swinging for the fences. Get a continuing resolution, then a budget deal and an enormous package that includes an Omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2018, disaster spending, flood insurance full reauthorization, and immigration issues. That’s a tall order. And sets us up for another continuing resolution fight after this one.

The difference? The national debt will be at the ceiling then.

Time to get to work.