The division among Republicans in the US House of Representatives increases the risk of a government shutdown this fall

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress flew into the August recess without a plan to avoid a partial government shutdown at the start of the novel fiscal year on Oct. 1 — and lawmakers writing spending bills acknowledge that is a real possibility given the deep divisions is.

The standoff stems from a disagreement among House Republicans over how much the government should spend and whether the bills should be filled with far-right policy goals.

“We are currently in a difficult situation. I regret that we are here,” Arkansas Republican Steve Womack told reporters shortly before recess about the divisions among Republicans in the House. “We now have four to five weeks to think about it. And maybe cooler heads will prevail when we can come back and do our work in September.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, and President Joe Biden agreed on the amount of spending during their negotiations in May The debt limit dealeven though the House drafted its dozens of government spending bills well below that level and littered the bills with social policy issues that couldn’t pass as stand-alone legislation.

But that hasn’t appeased some hardline conservatives, who argue that the party should force a government shutdown to move the bills even further to the right.

The disagreement among House Republicans could complicate efforts to reconcile spending bills written by the Budget Committee with those in the U.S. Senate, where lawmakers have 12 bipartisan bills poised for passage.

Womack, who authored the House Republicans’ financial services and government spending bill, said he was frustrated with far-right lawmakers’ approach to the annual process.

“It’s one thing if what you’re asking for has a chance of becoming the law of the land, but it’s a whole other thing if you’re doing it just to be stubborn and entrenched and basically taken my…” “Way-or-the-highway policy,” Womack said.

“That just won’t work in this environment. And we only have so much time. It is an emotionally charged debate. It is bitterly divided. It’s shirts and furs, and I think the American people deserve better,” Womack said.

The financial services bill funds the Treasury Department, the Justice Department and about 30 smaller agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission, the National Archives and Records Administration and the Small Business Administration.

Senators see an “upper hand” in the talks.

Senate supporters expressed similar sentiments, with several saying they expect the final spending bills to be much more similar to the bipartisan bills their committee has approved.

Montana Democrat Jon Tester, chairman of the defense spending panel, said he expected the final bills to look “more like the Senate bill than the House bill.”

Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, chairwoman of the subcommittee on labor, HHS and education spending, said the bipartisan nature of the Senate legislation will give that chamber an advantage when talks begin with the House.

“I think we will have the upper hand in these negotiations,” Baldwin said.

Womack said it’s not out of the question that the House will simply have to accept the Senate’s government funding bills outright without being able to advocate for some of the spending levels and policies in their bills.

“Look, if we get too unreasonable, that’s probably what the Senate will do – they’ll say, ‘Well, here it is.’ Take it or leave it and get out of town,” Womack said.

What would a shutdown look like?

The first deadline for Congress is October 1, the start of the novel fiscal year and the day a novel federal funding law must take effect. Historically, this is a stopgap measure for spending through December.

The kick-the-can-down-the-road approach is often seen as an opportunity for a few more months of negotiations, although there are already concerns that certain factions of the Republican Party may try to prevent this.

If that happens, Congress would plunge the federal government into a partial shutdown, which would be drastically different from the 34-day shutdown during the Trump administration.

When this ongoing shutdown began, Congress had already approved five of its bills, meaning the Departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Veterans Affairs were not affected by the shutdown. Congress had also passed its own funding bill, insulating itself and its staff from the effects of the funding shortfall.

The second deadline would be whenever the first emergency solution expires, or on January 1st.

If the government’s dozens of annual funding bills don’t take effect before the novel year, a provision in the debt-limiting bill would force a blanket 1% cut in spending on defense and domestic discretionary programs.

There is bipartisan concern in Congress that such a cut would have solemn consequences, particularly because lawmakers would be unable to determine which programs would be affected and which would not.

Womack said in a separate interview with States Newsroom that efforts to pass a short-term spending bill in September, historically a standard process, would present an “interesting dilemma for Congress.”

“In this current environment we find ourselves in, there are no guarantees anymore,” Womack said. “Conventional wisdom is kind of ignored on a lot of these types of issues.”

McCarthy intends to pass bills

McCarthy has begun publicly advocating for all spending legislation to be enacted sooner rather than later, arguing that a series of stopgap bills would result in the policies and funding levels from when Democrats controlled the House, Senate and who controlled the White House would be retained.

“I have real concerns about the appropriations when I look at all of Pelosi’s policies, which would be permanent if we didn’t make any appropriations, especially if members sought a continuing resolution,” McCarthy said, referring to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

McCarthy said it was his intention and hope to pass all dozen government funding bills before the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, although he did not clarify whether he meant passage in the House or passage in Congress.

The former is much more likely than the latter, although given the accelerated timetable and current politics, neither is guaranteed.

Florida Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, chairman of the subcommittee on government and foreign operations, said he was sanguine that a bipartisan agreement would be reached before the Jan. 1 deadline for spending cuts — if he and his counterparts Colleagues would have the opportunity to confer with the Senate and do so with their jobs.

“If we are allowed to go to the conference, we will do the work,” Díaz-Balart said. “Usually the process doesn’t really fail because of the appropriators, but because of other circumstances… and in this area I leave it to others.”

Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the top Democrat on the Financial Services and General Government panel, said Republicans need to reach consensus within their own party on spending levels and policy before conferring with the Senate.

“The Republican Party is a dysfunctional party right now. They don’t have a consensus,” Hoyer said.

Influence of the Freedom Caucus

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan said House Republicans are trying to balance different factions of their caucus in the same way the characters from “The Addams Family” interact in the fictional film.

“What they have done so far has made clear their values, which are pretty bad,” Pocan said just days earlier Republicans have cut funding for three LGBTQ projects from one of the spending bills. “I think the question will lie in the composition of their faction – a sort of Cousin It, Morticia, Uncle Fester.”

Pocan said he was concerned that House Republicans’ decision to cut spending levels below the debt limit and add particularly conservative policy language diluted the House’s negotiating position with the Senate.

“Ultimately, I’m worried that this gives the Senate even more leverage – they write the bill, they have the keys to the car while we ride in the trunk, so to speak – because we haven’t done the necessary work to bring it to the conference committee.” to actually create a position in the House that is vital in this process regardless of party,” Pocan said.

Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright, the top Democrat on the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee, said efforts to combine the House and Senate versions of the dozen spending bills into a final bipartisan bill would be particularly challenging.

“There is no doubt that the conference (committee) will become much more important this year because of the development of these bills. “We are essentially meeting the Freedom Caucus’ wish list with cuts to government investments across the board,” Cartwright said, referring to the group of particularly conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives.

Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the Transportation-HUD subcommittee, said he is confident Congress can send all dozen spending bills to Biden.

Cole’s optimism stems from the leadership of the two boards, which for the first time in the country’s history is led by four women. They include House Speaker Kay Granger, a Republican from Texas; Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat and ranking member in the House of Representatives; Senate President Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington; and the Senate’s ranking member, Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine.

“I think it will be tough in the end. But I think they will bring it to a conclusion,” he said. “And again, the alternative is just so terrible.”