Mr Americana, Overpasses News Desk
July 28th, 2015
Overpasses For America
VIA POLITICO
Speaker John Boehner, addressing a roomful of fellow House Republicans on Tuesday morning, described a major, six-year highway bill crafted by the Senate as a “piece of shit,” according to sources in the room.
Senate Republicans have been only slightly more charitable about the House’s three-month measure, calling it another lame procrastination on an issue that needs to be dealt with now.
The GOP Congress is likely to dispense with the highway issue in the next few days and skip town for a long summer break. But it won’t be any easier when lawmakers return — far from it.
In fact, lawmakers have teed up a hellish final few months of 2015, as a series of high-stakes deadlines looms on everything from keeping the government open to doling out money for roads and then, for good measure, raising the federal government’s borrowing limit. It promises to be a major test of the Republican Party’s ability to govern as the GOP prepares to ask voters to continue one-party control of Congress.
The crush was largely brought on by lawmakers themselves — the breakdown of the appropriations process this spring and failure to deal with highway funding have only added to the backlog of thorny, must-solve issues on Congress’ plate when it returns from its summer in September.
The legislative laundry list comes amid an ugly intraparty GOP feud between leaders of the House and Senate and their right flanks that have made passing bills in their own chamber treacherous, let alone getting them through the entire Congress.
The Senate’s internal politics have slowed floor action down to a crawl — not an encouraging development in the face of crucial deadlines. In the House, conservatives have threatened the leadership’s entire agenda.
The leaders can’t afford hiccups when they return. But almost no one expects there will be transformative, permanent solutions from this group of lawmakers.
“We’d love to get long-term solutions, but I think what we’ve realized in the first six or seven months are that smaller bites at the apple are much more doable,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a former House member.
After the monthlong August recess, Congress will have just 12 workdays in September to avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1. A law governing the Federal Aviation Administration expires that day, but congressional leaders are struggling to cobble together a bill.
Less than one month after that, highway funding is set to expire — again. House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) need to find a way to resolve their so-far intractable differences over how to reauthorize — and pay for — highway projects across the nation. Each wants to make a mark on highway policy, but they’ve been unable to do find any modicum of agreement thus far.
“It gives us the time we need,” Ryan insisted of the short-term extension Congress looks poised to pass this week. “It’s fine. Plenty of time.”
Boehner said he’s going to spend his political capital to help Ryan get it done.
“I want a long-term highway bill that’s fully paid for,” Boehner said Tuesday. “That’s been the goal all year. It continues to be the goal all year. We’ve been trying to do this for four years, it’s time to get it across the finish line. And I’m going to do everything I can to get to a long-term highway bill by the end of October.” (Many GOP aides acknowledge it could take until the end of November.)
After pushing for a six-year bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is now prepared to go along with the House’s temporary measure to buy time to start the negotiations. That would at least avoid a construction shutdown on Saturday.
Also likely awaiting lawmakers this fall will be a fight over the defunct Export-Import Bank. Backers of the government loan guarantee agency, which lapsed at the end of June, hoped it would be resurrected with the highway bill. But that isn’t happening, despite the support of Senate Democrats and half of Senate Republicans.
Conservatives like House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) view the bank’s expired charter as a major victory. But the failure to revive the bank could cause acrimony among a fragile coalition of pro-trade Democrats and Republicans when the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement comes up for a vote — also this fall. Proponents view the bank as a boost to free trade.
“We’ve demonstrated broad support for the Export-Import Bank. And somehow along the way it always gets left behind,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, a Democrat who “went to the mat” this spring to win a vote in the Senate. “This place boggles my mind every single day.”
Mix in a contentious vote on President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal in mid-September and the first attempt by a GOP-led Capitol to raise the debt ceiling later in the fall or winter and you have a perfect storm of deadlines with little time to meet them. Meanwhile, every decision on Capitol Hill is likely to be second-guessed by the rowdy band of Republicans trying to secure their party’s presidential nomination, four of whom serve in the Senate.
“I think it’s going to be a very vigorous fall and that’s what we signed up for,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
The deadlines could be particularly challenging for McConnell. The Senate often takes a week or longer — sometimes much longer — to finish legislation than the House. That could frustrate attempts to pass other legislation.
Senate Republicans, for instance, say they’re near a bipartisan breakthrough on criminal justice reform, a hot-button issue that could actually result in a new law. But making time on the calendar for the effort, with everything else going on, won’t be easy.
“As all of you have witnessed, it takes a long time to do things in the Senate,” McConnell said Tuesday, when asked when he’d get to the justice bill. The Senate also has yet to take up cybersecurity legislation that’s meant to respond to a series of massive hacks.
Of course, this is all grist for Democrats, who are all too happy to paint a picture of a chaotic Republican majority that can’t shoot straight. In truth, Democrats struggled on some of the same issues when they had the majority, particularly the highway bill.
But with so many unanswered questions about how the GOP can fend off fiscal calamity in the fall and Republicans already eyeing the exits for a lengthy summer break, Democrats see an opportunity to hit the Republican majority. GOP leaders have refused to sit down with Democratic leaders to craft a broad spending deal — instead the GOP leaders are leaving D.C. with “their tails between their legs,” as future Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York put it Tuesday.
“Deadline here, deadline there. But always deadlines. Management by crisis,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “The Republican leader has no plan to meet these deadlines.”
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