Deja VU: 12/16/10: Democrats push on spending as government shutdown looms

[Hannah Bell]

Democrats in Congress prepared on Thursday for a high-stakes game of chicken over spending as they moved toward a weekend vote that, if it fails, could lead to a shutdown of wide swaths of the government.

The looming battle over spending comes less than a day after lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a tax-cut package that would add $858 billion to budget deficits in a rare display of bipartisan cooperation.

The fiscal year began on October 1, but the government has been operating on an extension of last year's budget because Congress has been unable to pass any of the 12 bills that fund everything from prisons to scientific research.

Republicans want to extend that temporary funding until February, when they will control the House of Representatives and wield greater clout in the Senate. That would give them a greater chance to enact the deep spending cuts they promised voters in the November congressional elections.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/16/us-usa-congress-spending-idUKTRE6BD5C320101216


So what happened that time?


Congress OK’s stripped-down spending bill

On a 193-to-165 vote, the House backed a stripped-down measure that would freeze pay for federal employees, provide $160 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and head off cuts in Pell grants for college tuition. The Senate approved the bill hours earlier, 79-16.

The bill goes to President Obama, who was expected to sign it before midnight last night, when a lack of funds would have forced a government shutdown.

The measure is needed because the Democratic-controlled Congress — in an unprecedented breakdown of the budget process — has failed to pass a single one of the 12 annual spending bills that fund the day-to-day operations of every federal agency.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/12/22/congress_oks_stripped_down_spending_bill/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Top+political+stories


They couldn't pass a single spending bill when they had control of both houses? So for all of 2010, programs were running at 2009 funding levels. And federal employees' pay was frozen to boot. But somehow, in one of those rare moments of bipartisanship, they managed to extend tax cuts for billionaires that were supposed to sunset.

Yeah, pull the other one.


Then it happened again at the end of Feb: another dreaded shutdown threat, omg!


Government shutdown averted as House approves $4 billion in cuts


Short-term solution grants lawmakers and White House two weeks to set spending levels through Sept. 30th.

The House passed emergency short-term legislation Tuesday to cut federal spending by $4 billion and avert a government shutdown. Senate Democrats agreed to follow suit, handing Republicans an early victory in their drive to rein in government.

The bill that cleared the House on a bipartisan vote of 335-91 eliminates the threat of a shutdown on March 4, when existing funding authority expires. At the same time, it creates a compressed two-week timeframe for the White House and lawmakers to engage in what looms as a highly contentious negotiation on a follow-up bill to set spending levels through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

House Republicans were more eager to draw attention to the bill that was passing with the acquiescence of the White House and Democrats than to the challenge yet ahead.

"Now that congressional Democrats and the administration have expressed an openness for spending cuts, the momentum is there for a long-term measure that starts to finally get our fiscal house in order," said Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/03/01/congress_passes_spending_cuts_government_shutdown

[BzaDem]

1. You can't do much in the Senate without the consent of the other party.

The fact that Republicans have given consent to pass appropriations bills in the past does not really imply anything about a universe where they stop giving such consent. Democrats tried passing an omnibus (all 12 appropriations bills rolled into one), as both parties have in past years, but they were blocked.

[Hannah Bell]

2. they don't have to consent when dems control house & senate. which they did.

i'm sick of the rationalizations.

[jaxx]

3. You have to have 60 votes in the senate.

[Hannah Bell]

4. unless you're republican.