Government Shutdown Looms Despite Everyone Thinking It Will Be Avoided

While everyone is focused on the first debate tonight, the fact that the government may shut down at the end of this week seems to have gone pretty much under the radar. Government funding ends on September 30th and right now there is no budget in place to keep it functioning beyond then. Mitch McConnell had originally planned to quickly pass a continuing resolution (CR) in the Senate and then get out of town, essentially letting Paul Ryan deal with recalcitrant Republicans who were loathe to pass the CR which would allow the lame-duck Congress to pass some massive budget resolution for next year. But somewhere along the way, that plan went awry. Negotiations seemed to be near a conclusion last week but eventually broke down over money for Flint’s water crisis and restrictions on Planned Parenthood tied to Zika funding. McConnell then angered Democrats by offering what he described as a “clean” CR through December 9th that allocated money for the floods in Louisiana but had nothing for Flint’s water crisis. This was especially galling as the Senate had already voted 95-3 to allocate money for Flint in a separate water bill. On the Republican side, there is hardly unanimity either. As mentioned, some House Republicans do not want a gigantic omnibus spending bill to be passed by the lame-duck Congress and want to make sure that certain conservative pet peeves like blocking Syrian refugees from entering the US and restricting Planned Parenthood from any Zika funding get enacted. In the Senate, Ted Cruz and others do not want to turn over management of internet domains to an international body while Lindsey Graham wants to lift the restrictions on the Export-Import Bank that limits deals to under $10 million. There will be a procedural vote tomorrow afternoon in the Senate and, if that fails, the chances of the Senate being able to pass a bill before Friday becomes quite slim. And, even if the Senate does pass a bill, it will still need to pass the House where, due to the timing, it is virtually a “take it or leave it” proposition. And there is a minority of GOP members there whose inclination would be to leave it. Whether there are enough of them to derail the bill is Paul Ryan’s nightmare. The fact that things have reached this point is yet another reflection of the dysfunction in the Republican party. Despite controlling both houses of Congress, they are unable to perform the most basic function of funding the government. Not do they really seem to have a plan for doing so.

Democrats seem to feel that they have the upper hand and that failure to fund the government will fall on Republicans as they control both the House and the Senate. So it may be easier for Democrats to stick to their guns in these negotiations. But the reality is that pretty much all the members want to get this done and get back to their states or districts for the run-up to November, especially vulnerable Senate Republicans who are up for re-election. So the pressure for some kind of resolution is immense. But that doesn’t mean it will actually happen.