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Members of Congress will return to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday after their August recess. And they will be facing a very familiar predicament of their own making: They are running out of time to keep the government funded.
Once again, current funding is set to expire at the end of September with lawmakers having failed yet to do one of their most fundamental jobs: crafting and funding a budget for the federal government. And once again, it looks likely that a short-term stopgap bill will be needed to buy more time for an eventual deal. The odds of a shutdown, very concerningly, seem to be increasing.
None of this is particularly surprising; it is almost a given at this point in congressional dysfunction.
In mid-August, Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was already telling members of his caucus that he expected a short-term spending bill to buy more time after the Sept. 30 finding deadline.
As NBC News reported at the time, the remarks from McCarthy reflected “a growing recognition that Congress doesn’t have enough time to reach a full-year funding deal before money runs out on Sept. 30.”
Let’s be clear about something, though. Congress has had the time to do their job and reach this deal, they’ve just failed to do so.
Some work gets done during an August recess spent back in their respective states, sure. And the time out of town sometimes allows lawmakers and their staff to reset and gear up for a busy fall. Might their time have been better spent staying in Washington and working to pass individual spending bills ahead of the looming deadline, however? We certainly think so.
And to be clear about something else, the responsibility for this situation does not get spread out evenly. Senate appropriators, for example, have distinguished themselves this year above the typical funding failures by actually passing all 12 individual appropriations bills on time. Importantly, they also did so with overwhelming bipartisan agreement.
“For the first time in five years, this committee finished passing all twelve individual appropriations bills with overwhelming bipartisan votes, under incredibly tough circumstances — and all before the end of July. When we said we would return this committee to regular order, we meant it —this is a big deal,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said in a joint statement in late July.
Murray is the chair and Collins is the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“There’s simply no reason for chaos or gridlock when it comes to making sure our government is funded,” the senators continued at the time. “We are determined to deliver investments that will strengthen our economy, keep our country safe, and do some good for the people we all represent back home.”
While House Republicans have passed one of their individual funding bills on the House floor, a couple of their bills remain in committee. Those passed out of the relevant House committee have been on a much more partisan basis than those in the Senate, and at least one House bill has stumbled a bit before the full body. Some House Republicans have also worried that some in their ranks actually want a government shutdown.
To us, this all adds up to the House needing to follow the Senate’s more collaborative and constructive lead. This is especially true for those members who don’t seem to mind the idea of shutdown, though they might be the least likely to listen to the message. Although the idea of shutting down the federal government may be popular in some circles, government shutdowns are disruptive and costly. This is the very opposite of responsible governing.
