As Congress leaves town for five weeks, there's no shortage of unsolved challenges. Congress leaves, problems remain

The government shuts down Sept. 30. The farm bill isn’t done. The appropriations process is in shambles. Immigration reform is stagnant.

And Congress is heading for the exits.


The tensions on Capitol Hill are high, as legislative achievements are low.

The anger, frustration and disappointment was exposed after the House Republican leadership pulled a transportation spending bill from the floor this week because funding levels were too high for some, too low for others. Instead of recalibrating, House Republicans moved onto a series of bills aimed at stopping what they consider government abuse — legislation that dovetails with their August messaging.

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Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), the chair of the subcommittee that wrote the bill, stood up at a Wednesday afternoon meeting and yelled at attendees — including his best friend, Speaker John Boehner — “this is bullshit,” referring to leadership pulling his bill without warning.

Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), so frustrated by the stymied pace of spending bills, said he won’t pen a year-long continuing resolution, and his committee will not vote for it. The House has passed just four of 12 appropriations bills.

As Congress leaves town for a five-week recess, it faces no shortage of unsolved challenges. There is no clear strategy for funding the government beyond Sept. 30 and lifting the debt ceiling, the two fiscal fights looming in the fall.

Another big battle is how the sequester and its automatic budget cuts play out in 2014. House Republicans want to replace steep cuts with entitlement changes but continue to take a hard line on non-defense spending. Democrats and some Senate Republicans oppose this tack and would be willing to consider new revenue.

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There’s not even agreement on the level at which the government will be funded: House Republicans want to set spending at a level of $967 billion, and Senate Democrats are aiming for $1.058 trillion. How long will a stop-gap bill last? There’s no agreement on that either.

This is all rooted in the chambers’ inability to pass spending bills. After the House pulled its transportation bill, the Senate rejected its own transportation bill written by Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) whipped Republicans to oppose the legislation, arguing that it would violate the 2011 Budget Control Act that birthed the sequester.

Collins was the only Republican to support the bill. McConnell indicated the bill’s failure is evidence of the firm stance he will take entering the bruising fall negotiations.

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“This vote is of symbolic significance going into the fall, when we all obviously have the inevitable discussion about how to fund the government,” McConnell said.

All of this inaction has some people fed up. One House Republican is so mad, he’s openly defying his leadership. Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) is so angry Congress is leaving town, he voted against a rule (a procedural motion to bring a bill to the floor). He spent part of Thursday fielding calls from leadership, urging him to change his mind. He said he wouldn’t.

“It’s intense,” Rigell said, describing his frustration level. “I’m a businessman turned public servant. It’s irreconcilable what would happen in the private sector in a situation like this. Here we are, we’ve clearly, in the House of Representatives, we have not met, I believe, our fiduciary duty, what’s clearly laid out and expected of us, and reasonably expected of us, which is to pass all 12 appropriations bills.”

Rigell’s pleas aren’t stopping recess. And when lawmakers return, the budget fights will start anew.

Republicans in both chambers think they have the upper hand on sticking to a hard line that keeps the sequester spending levels intact. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), No. 3 in Senate Republican leadership, said in an interview that “the American people are with us.”

“There’s so much frustration across the country. They see Washington that does something, makes this commitment that we’re going to cut spending. And then boom: Two years later everybody wants to break the cap,” Thune said. “This is going to be very high ground politically for Republicans.”

Republicans say they aren’t angling for a shutdown — and Thune and other members of leadership like Republican Whip John Cornyn of Texas think ultimately it will be avoided, albeit at their preferred spending level.

Democrats are confident they have the advantage because of their messaging on the real-life impact of sequestration’s cuts to programs like medical research and Head Start programs. The Republican morass in the House has them eager for a showdown.

The budget, a document meant to set the nation’s financial priorities, is also left undone. Shortly before recessing for the summer, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) blocked a motion by Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to enter a formal budget negotiating session — the 18th objection, exemplifying the parties’ dug-in positions.

Some members are so familiar with Congress careening from crisis to crisis that they are unfazed by the latest impasse.

“I’m used to it. We’d be defying expectations if we passed funding resolutions more than 10 days before the deadline,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a former House member. “People don’t care about this until we get to the zero hour.”

“It’s always the case, but I still wish we could have a better understanding of where we’re going and what we’re doing,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the top tax-writing Senate Republican.

“I have not been in a good frame of mind of where we are and I’m not happy about losing five more weeks,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) of the extended break.

Not everyone is so downtrodden. A group of Senate Republicans continue to meet with the president and his top aides to try to settle on a small bargain, a grand bargain — or anything in between. They are talking, generally, about changes to entitlement programs, replacing the sequester and fresh infrastructure spending. They aren’t anywhere close to a final agreement.

“That’s why we’re working on it. We’ve got a deadline coming up. It’s both a deadline but it’s also an opportunity to force people to come together on solutions,” said Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who has been a key dealmaker in recent weeks.