We covered the economics of a government shutdown earlier this month, when we found ourselves awaiting passage of another continuing resolution to fund the government a few more weeks, buying time for negotiators on both sides to hammer out a deal for the Fiscal Year 2011 budget.
Two weeks have passed and we now find ourselves… awaiting passage of another continuing resolution to fund the government a few more weeks, buying time for negotiators on both sides to hammer out a deal for the Fiscal Year 2011 budget.
It’s déjà vu all over again, again.
And look, just out from Politico:
The House has passed a spending resolution to keep the government funded for another three weeks, voting 271-158 on a three-week bill that would cut $6 billion from the federal budget. The resolution now heads to the Senate.
Earlier in the day, Businessweek emphasised the opposition that House Speaker John Boehner faced from within his own party’s ranks:
House Speaker John Boehner predicted today the legislation would pass, though more than a dozen of his Republican members announced their opposition. Some want to make bigger spending cuts and some want to add policy restrictions such as a ban on funding the new health-care law, he said.
Politics isn’t really our bag, but it seems the most likely outcome is still that Congress will eventually work something out on the budget — just in time to start on next year’s. But even if they do, the more worrisome battle over the debt ceiling looms in April.
And as the FT reports on Tuesday afternoon, House Republicans appear to be digging in early for it:
The Republican leader in the House of Representatives vowed to extract big concessions on spending from the White House in exchange for a higher debt limit, as he faced mounting unrest from conservative lawmakers over his handling of the budget talks.
Between April 15 and May 31, the US will hit its congressionally mandated borrowing limit, which currently stands at $14,300bn. That threshold will need to be increased in order to avoid a potential default by the US. But many conservative and Tea Party-backed Republicans have signalled their unwillingness to approve such a measure unless their fiscal agenda – of sharp cuts to discretionary spending across government agencies – is on track.
We’re not really sure how to read the tea (party) leaves here.
The House leadership has thus far managed to cobble together deals with the Democrats to keep things moving even with significant dissent from the recently elected freshman members. But we have no idea if this will continue.
In the meantime, according to new polls from both ABC News/Washington Post and CNN, the public is tiring of the budget impasse and is starting to shift support to President Obama.
Or should that be withdrawing blame?
Related link:
Shutdown averted, for now – FT Alphaville