Congress marches toward September budget showdown to avert government shutdown

Congress may have ducked a federal default by voting to lift the debt ceiling two weeks ago. But the real challenge may come in September, when lawmakers must avert a government shutdown.

"We’re always working to avoid a problem ahead of time," said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

But some problems are hard to anticipate in advance. 

Let’s flip backwards through the calendar a bit. 

BIDEN ADDRESSES NATION AFTER CONGRESS PASSES BIPARTISAN DEBT CEILING BILL, AVERTING DEFAULT

McCarthy didn’t expect to only have a four-seat margin when Republicans won control of the House last fall. Estimates suggested the GOP would win 40 or 50 seats in the 2022 midterms. That’s why he couldn’t have anticipated a 15-round speaker’s race in January. And the California Republican couldn’t have divined that his party would struggle to bring a bill to protect gas stoves to the floor because of a revolt of, well fellow Republicans. Two Republicans who recently blocked the House from debating legislation — Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Chip Roy, R-Tex., voted in favor of a rule in the Rules Committee, to bring the gas stoves legislation to the floor. When the House met to adopt the rule to bring the gas stove bills to the floor (the House must first approve the rule, otherwise lawmakers can’t debate the underlying legislation), Norman, Roy and other GOPers voted nay, stopping the legislation.

The GOP nay voters never told top Congressional leaders of their plan to impede the House majority from considering the bill. As a result, legislative activity ground to a halt in the House for more than a week.

29 DEMS VOTE WITH GOP TO PROTECT GAS STOVES FROM BIDEN'S DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

One senior House Republican called the maneuvers by the band of arch-conservatives "juvenile, unprofessional and counterproductive in the extreme." It was also characterized as "tackling your own quarterback even when you agree with the play he called." 

As a result, the House majority managed to defeat its own rule for a bill on the floor for the first time in more than two decades.

The House finally advanced the gas stove measures this week.

However, what is past is prologue.

This is why it could be a monster to fund the government this fall and avert a shutdown by September 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

McCarthy has made it clear that he won’t allow lawmakers to cram together a potpourri of appropriations bills into an omnibus behemoth and pass that to avert a shutdown. He wants the House to consider each of the 12 spending bills one by one.

It’s unclear whether the House can pull that off. Keep in mind that the House and Senate must blend their bills together. All of this must happen by October 1. Though the deadline is three and a half months away, it’s really not that long from now.

What McCarthy hasn’t said is whether he would agree to the House approving what are known as "mini"-buses. In other words, any batch of appropriations bills which don’t comprise all 12. A "mini"-bus might include a group of four bills. Or five. Or two. But a "mini"-bus is smaller than an omnibus.

WHO WOULD BE HIT THE HARDEST BY A US DEBT DEFAULT?

Either way, a big dispute looms about funding the government.

"I’m very concerned about the possibility of the government shutdown if wiser and saner heads don’t get together and put aside partisan differences," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. 

Pressure from conservatives forced House Republican appropriators to begin writing spending bills for Fiscal Year 2023 at levels below the threshold achieved in the debt ceiling pact between McCarthy and President Biden.

"Any spending agreement that is arrived at by the end of the year has to be consistent with the resolution of the default crisis," said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. "Otherwise, what was it all for?"

But this dispute isn’t a customary scrape between Democrats and Republicans. Many Republicans — especially Senate Republicans — aren’t pleased with slashing so much money.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., doubts the House can accept spending bills that clock in at a higher level from the Senate.

"We’re heading toward trouble. That’s clear," said Kennedy. "Hello Mr. ‘Continuing Resolution.’"

A "continuing resolution" simply renews all previous funding from the last fiscal year, maintaining the overall spending levels. No less, no more. It’s a Band-Aid to avoid a shutdown.

This is precisely one of the scenarios McCarthy hoped to avoid. 

BATTLE BETWEEN MCCARTHY, GOP REBELS ‘UNRESOLVED’ AS HOUSE TRIES TO GET BACK TO WORK MONDAY

The challenge for McCarthy is to keep support from the right amid his meager, four-seat majority. But the goals of the right might not align with averting a government shutdown — or McCarthy maintaining his speakership. McCarthy relied on Democratic votes to avoid a federal default two weeks ago. Can he lean on the Democrats again? 

"We want him to choose us as his coalition partner. Not the Democrats," said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. "We can't live in a world in which the Democrats are the coalition partner on the substantive, and we're the coalition partner on the frivolous. And that's what we're trying to work through."

Here’s a flashpoint: the alleged politicization of the Department of Justice.

Some conservatives intend to come after the FBI and DOJ. Especially after the indictment of former President Trump.

"We have to exercise our authority, the power of the purse, to limit what the FBI and Justice Department are doing to the American people," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Fox last month. 

The threat is to cut the DOJ’s money or even harness money designated for probes of the former president. 

But conservatives are now rallying around fundamental changes — and sometimes even calls to end the DOJ and FBI.

Not all GOPers are aligned.

"Are we going to get rid of the Justice Department?" asked Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., rhetorically. "No. And I think defunding it is a really bad idea."

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On Monday, McCarthy sided with many Republicans who were aghast that the DOJ would prosecute the former president.

"The idea of equal justice is not playing out here," said McCarthy. "We want to look at it through weaponization."

Yours truly then pressed the speaker on how Republicans might craft spending measures to curb powers of the DOJ and FBI.

McCarthy and Jordan didn’t seem to be on the same page.

"It’s not ‘I’m going to punish you because you’re doing something,’" replied McCarthy. "That’s what Democrats do."

The speaker said that the FBI should revert to "helping local law enforcement. Stop human trafficking. Stop bank robberies."

The only thing McCarthy really seemed game to do was slash funding for a new FBI headquarters. 

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So, don’t expect lawmakers to resolve much of this any time soon. The deadline is September 30.

As they croon in the song, "We’ll see you in September. When the summer’s through."