Congress returned from a lengthy summer recess Tuesday tasked with averting a government shutdown by Oct. 1and busting a months-long stalemate on funding to combat the Zika virus.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said they still want to pass a dozen annual spending bills by December to fund federal agencies through fiscal 2017, though they pledged to pass a short-term bill to keep the lights on past Sept. 30, when current funding runs out.
“We’re coming to the typical kind of stalemate, which has become all too familiar in divided government. It’s very frustrating,” Mr. Ryan told WBEL 1380 AM in Janesville, Wisc. “But nevertheless, we’re going to work through these issues and we will have a successful outcome to make sure just that, you know, the trains are running on time while we negotiate individual spending bills throughout the fall.”
Some in the GOP want to extend the fight into the next year, allowing a new Congress and president to sort it out, though Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is demanding a shorter, three-month bill known as a continuing resolution.
House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, echoed those calls Tuesday, saying a resolution that locks in current spending levels “should go to sometime in December,” so that lawmakers wrap up their work before the year ends.
If nothing else, Republican leaders wanted to brush aside election-year chaos and use “regular order” to fund the government by passing all 12 appropriations bills by the end of September.
Yet the process went off the rails early on. House Republicans failed to pass a budget amid intra-party turmoil over spending levels, and Senate Democrats blocked a defense spending bill over concerns that GOP leaders would get stingy when it brought the rest of the bills funding domestic needs to the floor later on.
Senate Republican leaders will try to advance the defense measure once again late Tuesday, following a third vote on a $1.1 billion package to combat the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease that is spreading on its own in Florida.
Barring a breakthrough, Democrats will continue to block a military construction bill that contains the GOP-crafted Zika package.
Democrats said the bill should have included Planned Parenthood in its birth-control plans, since Zika virus is known to cause birth defects in some infants born to infected mothers.
Also, Republicans partially paid for their offer by taking $750 million from the Ebola fight, Obamacare and other accounts, angering Democrats who wanted to swiftly pass President Obama’s request for $1.9 billion in new spending.
The administration says it is about to run out of funds it diverted to the Zika fight, though it is still hoping for a deal on its request for supplemental funds.
Mr. Ryan said he expects a way forward “by the end of this month,” should Democrats resist GOP calls to end their filibuster.
“We believe the Democrats should stop playing politics with it and pass it,” Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, said. “Why would the Democrats continue to [filibuster] with American lives in jeopardy?”
Mr. Hoyer said he would be open to rolling new Zika funding into the short-term spending bill, so long as Republican do not include “poison pill” provisions objectionable to Democrats and the White House.
“Sure, they could go as one document,” he said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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