Just before Congress took its annual leave of the swampy capital, Rep. Rob Woodall expressed what is no doubt an unpopular view among weary members and staff.
“I really wonder, now that we don’t really have to go home for the fall harvest, if the days of the August break are done,” the Lawrenceville Republican said.
Woodall said he was not yet seriously concerned about an Oct. 1 government shutdown, given that it’s two months away. But all that time away from D.C. means the House only has nine Washington workdays left until then.
Some time away might be healthy. Speaker John Boehner thinks the break will have his hard-to-govern flock “in a better mood when they come back.”
Moods were prickly last week on Capitol Hill as the appropriations process veered into a ditch.
The House put together a $44.1 billion bill to fund transportation and housing programs under current-law spending caps. The Senate wrote a $54 billion bill to provide more funding for roads and bridges, among other programs.
Both versions flopped. House leaders yanked their bill because it did not have the votes; Republicans successfully blocked the Senate bill with a filibuster after Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid told chattering colleagues to "sit down and shut up" while another senator was making a floor speech.
After the filibuster, senators decamped to a rare bipartisan lunch hosted by Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, who imported from Sam’s BBQ1 of Marietta for his colleagues. Isakson admitted to reporters that senators were not exactly solving the chamber’s problems over pulled pork, but he did hope the cross-aisle fraternizing would help ease tensions.
Later Thursday, Isakson and a handful of Republican senators went to the White House for the latest in semi-regular meetings with President Barack Obama about a possible budget deal. Aside from a shutdown, another debt-ceiling crisis looms this fall.
Democrats are eager to bust the austere budget caps and offset the difference with more tax revenue. Republicans generally would like to see less spending. A deal to reduce future spending on entitlements such as Medicare could bridge the gap, but it appears far off.
For now, the across-the-board sequestration cuts are not going away.
“I think that not enough Republicans have felt the pain from their citizens that they would change their minds,” said Rep. Hank Johnson, a DeKalb County Democrat. “They’re full speed ahead over there, and we’re getting ready for a train wreck.”
At least on spending levels there’s a way to split the difference. Not so on Obamacare, as some Republicans are viewing this fall as their last stand to halt the law before it’s implemented.
Some conservative GOP senators and House members are vowing not to vote for any spending bill that includes a dime of funding for the health law.
U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican who is running for the Senate next year, has not laid down a strict ultimatum on that question. But he is in charge of the spending bill in the House for the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education departments, which he pledges will defund Obamacare.
Problem is, House leaders will not let Kingston reveal the bill yet, another sign of the appropriations logjam that left Kingston “extremely disappointed” last week.
Democrats are in no mood to kneecap the signature legislative achievement of the Obama era. That view will collide with Republican hatred of the law in a stopgap “continuing resolution” vote sometime in September.
Asked whether the continuing resolution would include Obamacare funding, Boehner said “no decisions have been made.” They’ll have to wait until after the harvest.
