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We are nearing the end of the federal fiscal year, so you almost don’t even have to check the headlines from Washington to know that Congress has not done one of its most basic jobs, and that we are once again careening toward a federal government shutdown.
If you’re feeling like we write this lament basically every year around this time, that is because we do. And that’s necessary because Congress continues to fail to pass individual appropriations bills on time, leaving the country with last-minute brinkmanship and seemingly endless short-term funding patches that put the government on autopilot. As a result Congress fails to make forward-thinking investments, and continues to kick the can down the road without making the tough but necessary decisions to reign in federal spending in the face of a $35 trillion national debt.
Blame can be doled out to Republicans and Democrats alike for this continued failure of process and leadership. Despite some recent headwinds on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where leaders Patty Murray of Washington and Susan Collins of Maine have made bipartisan strides to produce widely supported appropriations bills on time, the federal funding process remains largely defined by procrastination, posturing and inaction.
While Democratic and Republican leaders alike have contributed to this frustrating and financially irresponsible status quo, there should also be little doubt about who is the biggest impediment to a funding deal right now: House Republicans.
Despite the ever-obvious mathematical reality in a divided Washington that the path to avoiding a shutdown runs through a bipartisan deal securing both Republican and Democratic support, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and his fellow Republicans in that chamber plodded along with a show vote that was sure to fail and was tied to the unrelated issue of non-citizen voting.
Given that failure, as expected, it now falls to Johnson and his caucus to accept the reality that they need to work with Democrats to avoid a costly government shutdown. Former President Donald Trump may be willing to see the government shut down if he doesn’t get the voting bill he wants, but Republican lawmakers must not adopt his same irresponsible posture.
It is not every day that we agree with an assessment from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who has left little doubt about his thoughts on a potential shutdown.
“One thing you cannot have is a government shutdown. It would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election, because certainly we’d get the blame,” McConnell said on Tuesday, as reported by the Hill.
It wouldn’t just be politically stupid. It would also be economically stupid for the country. Previous federal shutdowns have cost America billions of dollars.
“One of my favorite old sayings is there’s no education in the second kick of a mule. We’ve been here before,” McConnell also said. “I’m for whatever avoids a government shutdown, and that’ll ultimately end up, obviously, being a discussion between the [Senate] Democratic leader and the Speaker of the House.”
Congress has until the end of the month to figure out the funding mess and avert a government shutdown. Hopefully it doesn’t take House Republicans nearly that long to realize that McConnell is right, and to recognize that the productive way forward is through a bipartisan deal, not cynical partisan messaging.
