|
 That was the clear message from most lawmakers interviewed on
Friday as well as from close observers of Congress, after the deal
passed through the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday on its
way to the Senate.
The budget bill, negotiated by Republican Representative Paul Ryan
and Democratic Senator Patty Murray, is vague and non-specific,
avoiding tough, divisive issues. But Congress' agenda for the next
year is full of specifics, including raising the debt ceiling,
funding individual government programs, immigration reform and
passing a farm bill.
"I think next year is tougher," said Nebraska Republican Senator
Mike Johanns. "It's an election year. Tens of millions of dollars
will be spent trashing people, and it's hard to forget that."
The deal was a "one-off," said Norm Ornstein, a scholar of Congress
at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
It may avoid government shutdowns, assuming it passes the Senate
next week as expected, he said. But "I don't see any signs that the
fundamentals have changed."
That was also the message from the floor of the U.S. Senate, where
Republicans, some red-faced with rage, kept berating Democrats on
Friday for stripping away their right to block President Barack
Obama's judicial nominations using the filibuster, a procedural
hurdle.
"The whole atmosphere here is totally poisoned, OK," said Senator
John McCain when asked as he left the floor if the budget deal
changed anything.
"There's no cooperation, there's no comity. And it is what it is,"
notwithstanding the fact that Democrats and Republicans came
together to approve the budget bill.
"It can't get much worse," he said.
ELECTION YEAR "TRASHING"
That does not bode well for the issues facing Congress as it enters
its second half, with all seats in the Republican-led House and a
third of those in the Democratic-led Senate up for election next
November.
The political advantage of the budget agreement was its vagueness.
It set overall spending levels for two years, a significant break
from the recent pattern of short-term funding bills that required
extension every few months, always under the threat of a government
shutdown like the 16-day closure in October.
But it did not tackle the most volatile issues, such as Democratic
demands for tax increases and Republican efforts to control spending
on "entitlements," such as the healthcare program for seniors,
Medicare, or Social Security retirement.
While it set as a goal $1.012 trillion in spending, it did not
specify how the sum would be divided up among individual programs,
each of which has a constituency.
Indeed, once the budget bill is approved by the Senate, as expected
next week, a more challenging and potentially acrimonious
appropriations process will begin that could set off a scramble
among advocates for particular interests.
[to top of second column] |
"We have a heavy lift ahead of us," said House Appropriations
Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, "drafting, negotiating, and passing
these bills in just over one month."
In an interview on PBS, Murray acknowledged that she and Ryan
avoided the divisive questions. "You set aside the hot issues," she
noted in describing the formula for success in the negotiations.
In the immigration fight, for example, setting aside the "hot
issues" might not be possible, as Democrats, including Obama, insist
that any legislation contain a "pathway to citizenship" for the 11
million undocumented people living in the United States.
That presents a problem for many conservative Republicans, who see
those people as having broken the law by either entering the United
States illegally or overstaying their visas.
DEBT CEILING UNRESOLVED
Nor did the budget deal address the bill expected in the spring to
increase the nation's borrowing limit. Conservatives, particularly
those associated with the Tea Party movement, have regularly opposed
the debt ceiling measure, twice bringing the government to the brink
of a potential default.
Since Republican House Speaker John Boehner enraged conservatives
this week by pushing through the budget deal they equated with
surrender, Ornstein believes he may feel a need to mollify them by
again demanding big spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt
ceiling.
"If you do something" that angers "the radical wing, does that give
you more ability and incentive to do it again or does it require you
to do something to make it clear that you really love them?" said
Ornstein.
The debt ceiling "will come up," said Johanns. "We are going to
struggle with that issue."
"The fact that the debt ceiling fight will come right before the
Republican primaries means that the fiscal battles haven't gone
away, but instead will likely heat up," said Ron Bonjean, a former
Republican leadership aide in the House.
"Republican members of Congress will want to show how conservative
they are to voters back home," he said. "This deal looks like a
peaceful retreat made by both parties in order to rest up for the
major battle over the debt ceiling."
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Thomas Ferraro;
editing
by Fred Barbash and Peter Cooney)
[© 2013 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2013 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
