Debt deal behind them, lawmakers plunge into bitter spending battle

After narrowly avoiding federal bankruptcy, the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-led Senate are now on a collision course over spending that could lead to a government shutdown this year and automatic spending cuts in early 2025 with dire consequences for the economy. Pentagon and a variety of domestic programs.

Far-right Republicans whose votes will be needed to keep the government funded are demanding cuts that go far deeper than what President Biden and Chairman Kevin McCarthy agreed to in the bipartisan compromise they reached last month to suspend the debt ceiling, but such cuts are all but certainly non-starters in the Senate.

The looming stalemate threatens to complicate an already extremely difficult process as top members of Congress try for the first time in years to pass individual spending bills to fund all parts of government in an orderly manner and to implement the usual accumulation at the end of the year. If they can’t, under the terms of the debt limit deal, cuts will happen across the board in 2025, a worst-case scenario lawmakers in both parties want to avoid.

The clashes began this week, when House proprietors began considering their bills and, in an effort to appease their ultraconservative wing, said they planned to fund federal agencies below the levels Mr Biden and Mr McCarthy had been charged. agreed.

Democrats refused, saying the move would wreak havoc on the economy and the proper functioning of the government.

“I fully intend to follow the dictates of what we passed in the Senate and House and what the president signed,” said Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat and the chair of the Appropriations Committee. “I put them in their box of chaos,” she said of House Republicans.

The approach was particularly ill-advised, she added, given that many of the right-wing lawmakers were bent on reflexively voting against the government spending bills.

“I don’t believe the country wants us to be there; they don’t want chaos,’ Mrs Murray said. “They don’t want a small minority to decide where our economy is going.”

Faced with an uprising from far-right Republicans over the debt limit deal, Mr. McCarthy and his leadership team this week blindsided Democrats by setting allocations for the 12 annual spending bills at 2022 levels, about $119 billion short of the $1. 59 trillion allowed in the deal to raise the debt ceiling.

The lower spending levels, demanded by Freedom Caucus members who closed the House last week to express anger at the debt limit deal, were pushed by the Appropriations Committee on Thursday after hours of acrimony in which Democrats accused Republicans of going back on the compromise.

“The ink on the bipartisan budget deal is barely dry, but we’re here to consider the spending agenda of the Republican majority, which completely renounces the compromises made less than two weeks ago,” said Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, the chief democrat on credits. Commission.

Rep. Kay Granger, a Texas Republican and the committee chair, said using the lower number would allow the House to “refocus government spending in line with Republican priorities.” Mr McCarthy said he sees the spending limits set in the agreement as simply a cap and that the House wants to cut spending.

“There’s no limit to how low you can go,” he said, claiming Republicans wanted to show the public that they “could be more efficient in government, that we could save the hard-working taxpayer more, that we could put more waste in to eliminate Washington.” .”

But the differing approaches on either side of the two sides’ Capitol will certainly make it extremely difficult to pass the bills. Failure to pass and reconcile the bills of the House and Senate before Oct. 1 could lead to a shutdown of the government. And if the individual bills are not approved by the end of the year, an automatic 1 percent cut would go into effect, which defense hawks say would be devastating to the Pentagon and US support for the Ukrainian military.

Given the options, those responsible for the spending bills in both chambers say they must move forward.

“From my perspective, we should just keep going in the Senate,” said Maine Senator Susan Collins, the senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee. “I hope the House will find a way to reach a consensus.”

The four appropriation committee leaders, all women for the first time, have said from the outset that they wanted to bring the 12 spending bills to the table in “normal order” and avoid what has become an annual ritual where congressional leaders gather in their suites to close a last-minute deal that bundles hundreds of billions of dollars in spending into one take-it-or-leave-it package.

As part of the debt limit agreement, Senator Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat and Majority Leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and Minority Leader, issued a statement pledging to seek “fundamental consideration” of the spending bills and to facilitate. .

Leaders have avoided floor fights over spending in recent years because they are time-consuming and can force lawmakers to cast politically charged votes. But this practice has many lawmakers complaining about being kept out of the most basic function of Congress, and committee chairs say they want it ended.

“What most of us are trying to avoid is a giant omnibus at the end of the year that excludes many regular members from input,” Ms Collins said. “It would be healthy for the Senate dynamics, good for our country and better for federal programs and agencies if we do our work on time.”

At this point, completing the spending bills on a schedule that hasn’t been met in recent times seems like a hard-to-reach goal, as the House and Senate have been at odds from the start of the comprehensive review of the spending bills. But those responsible say they cannot surrender.

“If we all said, ‘Oh, there’s nothing we can do, there could be a possible train wreck,’ then why are we here?” asked Mrs. Murray. “My job is to get my bills done, to do everything I can to get our bills through the Senate.”

The current turmoil, she said, may dissipate as the deadlines for action draw closer.

“I wouldn’t take the temperature of where we’re going to be three months from today,” Ms Murray warned. “We still have a long way to go.”