FEARS OF a government shutdown at midnight tomorrow loomed large yesterday as a meeting at the White House failed to materialise and Democrats and Republicans traded recriminations in Congress.
US president Barack Obama told journalists on Tuesday afternoon that he would continue to hold daily meetings with congressional leaders until agreement was reached.
But yesterday, Mr Obama merely spoke with House speaker John Boehner and Senate majority leader Harry Reid on the telephone before leaving on unrelated trips to Philadelphia and New York. There were unconfirmed reports that the men planned to meet late last night.
This is the third time this year that the federal government has reached the brink of a shutdown. Short-term continuing resolutions were passed twice to avert a government closure. The first time, Republicans insisted on $4 billion (€2.8 billion) in budget cuts; the second, on $6 billion.
Republicans have proposed a third continuing resolution, which would cut $12 billion and fund the federal government until April 15th. An exception would be made for the Pentagon, which would be funded until the end of the fiscal year in September.
Mr Obama and Mr Reid have both rejected the Republican proposal, although the president said he might consider an extension of several days to draft legislation funding the entire government through September. The series of continuing resolutions “is not a way to run a government”, Mr Obama said. “I can’t have our agencies making plans based on two-week budgets.”
Mr Reid has repeatedly blamed the right-wing Tea Party, which made it possible for the Republicans to seize the House last November, for the budget crisis. “The Republican leadership has the Tea Party screaming so loudly in its right ear that it can’t hear what the vast majority of the country demands,” Mr Reid said on the Senate floor yesterday.
Mr Reid accused Republican leaders of intransigence. “We all have a responsibility to be reasonable,” he said. “At this late stage of the game, reality is more important than ideology.”
The Republicans originally wanted $33 billion in cuts this year, but under pressure from the Tea Party, that was increased to $61 billion in a Bill passed by the House but rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate in January.
Democrats now say they are willing to cut $33 billion, but the Republicans have moved the goal-posts. Mr Boehner is reportedly demanding $40 billion in cuts now. Democrats are particularly angered by “policy riders” attached by the Republicans to proposed spending Bills. Conservatives are trying to use the budget saga to advance their social agenda by cutting all funding for Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio, and preventing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from fighting climate change.
Mr Obama lashed out at the policy riders saying, “What we can’t be doing is using last year’s budget process to have arguments about abortion, to have arguments about the EPA, to try to use this budget negotiation as a vehicle for every ideological or political difference between the two parties.”
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell shot back at Mr Reid yesterday, accusing the Democrats of “rooting for a shutdown” and being “more concerned with the politics of this debate than with keeping the government running”.
Opinion polls show Americans would blame both parties for a shutdown, but the political risk may be greater for Republicans. Democrats are viewed as the party of government, while Republicans are inimical to it. The last two shutdowns, which lasted for a total of 27 days in November-December 1995 and January 1996, prompted a backlash against Republicans.
Mr Boehner has said he will “fight for the largest cuts possible – real cuts, not more smoke and mirrors”. He attacked Mr Obama yesterday, saying, “If he wants to have an ‘adult conversation’ about solving our fiscal challenges, he needs to lead instead of sitting on the sidelines.”
The budget-management office has asked government agencies to make contingency plans for a shutdown, which would close museums, national parks, the passport agency and some functions of the internal revenue service. The military would continue to fight, though soldiers’ pay would be held until Congress reauthorised spending.
The brinkmanship over a shutdown has coincided with an even more difficult dispute over the budget for 2012.