Although the
new Republican-dominated Congress can point to a number of bipartisan successes
– including new fast-track Pacific Rim trade legislation and a long-overdue
revision to Medicare’s reimbursement policies for doctors – a shocking array of
must-pass fiscal and budget legislation will remain while lawmakers celebrate
the month-long August holiday.
“Congress is
not getting its job done because it’s too polarized and its ordinary processes
have broken down,” said Alice Rivlin, a former
director of the Congressional Budget Office and a senior economist at the
Brookings Institution. “There have been lots of promises [of an improved
legislative system] but it’s not happening. It’s very discouraging.”
The list of
crucial unfinished business as the summer recess begins later this week is
remarkably long and weighty:
About $1.1 trillion of discretionary spending bills critical to
operating the government in the coming year are trapped in a dispute
between GOP leaders and President Obama over new spending levels. At issue
is whether to lift tight spending caps on both domestic and defense
programs, as Obama is demanding, or only lift them for defense programs,
as the Republicans insist.
The House and Senate have feuded for weeks over new legislation to
fund highway and bridge construction and other infrastructure projects.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pressed for nearly $50
billion of new spending over the next three years while House leaders
prefer just a three-month extension while they explore alternatives for
paying for longer-term legislation.
Congress allowed the charter of the U.S. Export-Impact Bank to
expire June 30 – a decision that abruptly called a halt to all new loan
guarantees to foreign customers of U.S.-exported goods. The House and
Senate are at odds over whether to renew the bank’s authorization and, if
so, how to go about doing it.
