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Congress is at an impasse over a federal spending bill amid a partisan dispute over funding for disaster assistance, escalating a fight that threatens a shutdown of U.S. government operations.
The Senate rejected, 59-36, a House-passed stopgap measure to fund the government until Nov. 18 and provide $3.65 billion in aid to victims of Hurricane Irene and other natural disasters. Senate Democratic leaders opposed the House bill’s spending cuts to offset the disaster aid and said it didn’t provide enough money to help affected communities.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, saying leaders in both parties need to “cool off,” offered an alternative measure to fund the government and provide the House-approved level of disaster aid without the spending offsets. The Senate plans a test vote on the measure Sept. 26.
“There’s a compromise here,” said Reid of Nevada. “The government is not shutting down. FEMA is not out of money.”
FEMA needs additional funding by early next week, lawmakers in both parties have said. The rest of the government will run out of money Sept. 30. Both houses had been scheduled to be on recess next week.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he spoke by telephone today with Reid, a Democrat, and “there wasn’t much progress made.”
“If we are back in Washington it means Harry Reid has shut down FEMA and denied disaster victims their relief,” said House Majority LeaderEric Cantor, a Virginia Republican.
Not ‘Honest Effort’
The House measure “is not an honest effort at compromise,” Reid said in a statement late yesterday.
Democrats object to offsetting the cost of disaster assistance, a break with the typical practice of approving such funds on an emergency basis. They also oppose specific program cuts Republican use as offsets, including a $1.5 billion cut in a green-technology auto-loan program.
Democrats also reject a provision to rescind $100 million from a program that provided a $535 million federal loan guarantee to Solyndra LLC, which filed for bankruptcy protection this month.
Two days ago, House Republicans unhappy with the measure’s overall cost joined Democrats opposed to the auto industry-loan reduction to derail an earlier version of the measure, 230-195. The vote was a setback for Boehner, who has faced challenges in managing a large freshmen class of Tea Party-backed Republicans that earlier this year threatened a shutdown and a default on obligations to government bondholders.
‘No Threat’
Boehner of Ohio said at a news conference yesterday there is “no threat” of a government shutdown.
Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democratic leader, said, “We’re watching the Tea Party shut- down movie for the third time this year.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California told reporters that Democrats would oppose all efforts to offset disaster aid with other cuts.
The dispute carries political risk for Republicans because polls show the public is weary of the rancor that marked previous battles over the budget. Disapproval ratings for Congress are at historic highs, and Republicans are faring worse than Democrats in polls.
Job Performance
In a Sept. 10-15 CBS News/New York Times poll, 72 percent of adults surveyed disapproved of the job performance of Republicans in Congress and just 19 percent approved. Democrats had a disapproval rating of 63 percent and an approval rating of 28 percent. The poll of 1,452 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The higher disapproval ratings for Republicans stem largely from perceptions that Boehner and other party leaders are unwilling to compromise with Democrats on key issues, said Michael Dimock, research director of the Pew Research Center.
Democrats got a boost from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which said in a letter to senators that the auto-loan program “promotes manufacturing in the U.S. and is an important component of America’s energy security.”
Republican leaders were only able to lift the U.S. debt limit last month with the help of Democrats. The new legislation would set spending levels for the “discretionary” budget for the upcoming fiscal year agreed to last month in the debt-limit compromise. Democrats say they have no intention of reopening that debate.
Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said, “You can’t shake hands on an agreement at the end of July and then they say ‘oh no, it’s up for negotiation again’ in September.”
The measure rejected by the Senate today is H.R. 2608.
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