The functional dysfunctional Congress
The congressional theater surrounding the battle over federal spending, which has repeatedly brought the government to the brink of a disastrous shutdown over the past six months but was resolved just in time to avoid a shutdown, has become very predictable.
Days before a midnight Friday deadline, there has been no official word on a compromise between Republicans and Democrats that could avert the crack. But behind the scenes, members of the credit committees of both parties are working out complex deals among themselves.
Speaker Mike Johnson is publicly — and even privately — mulling over whether he’s willing to agree to the coming compromise, but ultimately insists that Republicans must avoid a government shutdown, claiming they’ve scored some victories despite the fact that they have failed to secure the cuts. policy mandates they wanted. He is overriding the legislation using a maneuver that effectively deprives far-right Republican rebels of the means to block it. The archconservatives are breathing fire and condemning it, but the bill passes easily, with far more Democratic than Republican support.
Mr Johnson will still keep his job. The Senate sends the measure to President Biden, who quickly signs it.
Welcome to functional dysfunction, an emerging form of minimalist coalition government that has taken over Capitol Hill in a divided Congress where the House majority is barely in control. It’s a dynamic that keeps the government’s lights on, but does little else so far.
“We found a way,” said Rep. Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. “It’s not a pretty sight, but it works.”
As Congress finally approaches its basic task of funding the government, albeit six months late, the outcome of the latest spending battle illustrates what happens when an extreme bloc of the House majority—in this case, far-right Republicans— digs in and refuses to compromise, forcing their colleagues into the arms of the minority. The legislation must be designed more to the liking of the minority – now the Democrats – and the arch-conservatives are losing completely.
If a “uniparty” exists, as members of the far right have long claimed, they have helped strengthen it.
“We’ve said all along that we’re either going to lock arms and do this together, or you’re going to force us to water down these things, make them more expensive and accept things that we would rather not accept in the future . to be able to get something across the finish line,” said Rep. Steve Womack, Republican of Arkansas and another senior appropriator, in explaining the dynamic with the far right.
The inability to bend the spending curve significantly more in their direction has left ultraconservatives in the House of Representatives frustrated and reeling. They attack the spending bills as “business-as-usual” packages in Washington that make no real attempt to make the deep cuts that Republicans promised to make when they took over the House of Representatives last year.
“The fact is, this is all just a shell game,” said Rep. Chip Roy, Republican of Texas. He was one of a handful of critics in the House of Representatives this week to discuss the six-bill spending package, which ultimately passed the House in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion and was headed for a lopsided passage in the Senate on Friday.
He and others are finding that the vast majority of their colleagues simply do not embrace the slash-and-burn shutdown tactics that the far right would willingly deploy in the interest of some major budget cuts in an election year.
“People are comfortable with the status quo and it’s working for them,” Rep. Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, said of his own party’s resistance to significantly cutting spending and disrupting government.
With Republicans holding a razor-thin majority, the conservative refusal to engage has left Mr. Johnson little choice but to deal with Democrats if he wants to avoid a government shutdown — and like his doomed predecessor, Speaker Kevin McCarthy , he has made it clear time and time again he does that.
Ultimately, anti-spending conservatives say there is little they can do if most House Republicans are unwilling to stage another coup against the chairman after the chaos caused by McCarthy’s impeachment last year.
“We tried structural change, but it didn’t work,” said Rep. Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado. “We made a personnel change and that didn’t work. What remains at this point: another personnel change? No one seems to want to do that.”
Mr. Cole said that if the right wing really wants to reduce the deficit, it must focus less on annual spending and more on massive programs like Social Security and Medicare.
“If you’re really concerned about the deficit, I want to see your entitlement reform plan,” he said. “You know, tell me what you’re going to do.”
But the political danger inherent in merely mentioning these programs has made even the most conservative members of Congress reluctant to bring them up. Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, took a beating when he broached the subject a few years ago in a proposed party agenda that failed.
The spending situation has worked in Democrats’ favor. Although the six spending measures scheduled to take effect Friday were not written in the way Democrats would have insisted if they were in the majority, all but two Democrats in the House of Representatives supported them, along with 132 Republicans. Eighty-three Republicans voted no.
Democrats said they could use their influence to keep out of the legislation a slew of provisions sought by the far right. Republicans knew they had to strip most of them to win the Democratic votes needed to pass the legislation, as conservatives refused to vote for the spending bills under any circumstances.
“Once again, Democrats protected the American people and provided the overwhelming majority of votes needed to get things done,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said after the House vote Wednesday.
The coalition remains vulnerable and so far mainly extends to expenditure items. Mr. Johnson is relying on substantial Democratic support to use a procedural shortcut to bring the bills to the floor and bypass a procedural blockade from his own party. But the speaker has so far declined to use the same procedure to move forward with a Senate-passed bill that includes more than $60 billion in security aid to Ukraine, even as both Republicans and Democrats say it also includes support from the US majority in favor exists.
And the next tranche of six spending bills taking shape could be much harder to pass than the first six. The package will include some of the most controversial spending measures, including money for agencies that oversee the border, as well as health and labor programs — areas where Democrats and Republicans have been sharply divided in the past. Top lawmakers say it could be difficult to get the same kind of overwhelming approval.
Still, those who supported the spending bills in the face of fervent but so far ineffective opposition from the far right say they are satisfied with what has happened, with both sides scoring some wins and suffering some losses while keeping the government open.
“Both sides can claim some victories on this issue,” Mr. Womack said of the legislation passed this week. “And god, isn’t that the way this is supposed to work?”