Oct. 1 Fiscal Year: Can the Congress Get Any More Dysfunctional? Yes It Can

U. S. Government Reaches for a State of Paralysis, Again

The Dismal Political Economist is getting tired of being prescient.  On August 3 he warned about the coming end of the federal government’s fiscal year of 2011, and the fact that for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2011 there was no spending authorization in place.  This was the day after, yes the day after an agreement had supposedly been reach funding the government through at least the next two years.

Of course, no one counted on Hurricanes and other natural disasters.  As a result, the government needs billions more in spending to provide natural disaster relief, something it has always done, no strings attached.  Four governors in a bi-partisan message have urged the government to act.

“Within 10 days of Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed and the president signed over $60 billion in aid for the Gulf Coast,” the governors wrote. “It’s been 28 days since Irene and Lee started battering our states. We urge this Congress to move swiftly to ensure that disaster aid through FEMA and other federal programs is sufficient to start rebuilding now.”

But radical Conservative Republicans in the House see another opportunity to “extort” and exploit the natural disasters in order to impose their agenda on an unwilling nation.  The House, after first rejecting a bill later passed a bill with insufficient aid and with the requirement that the disaster aid be offset by decreases in other spending.

On the Senate side there was this

the Senate voted 59 to 36 to set aside the House bill, with a handful of conservative Republicans joining with Democrats to deliver a quick and decisive rejection. Democrats opposed the measure because the disaster relief effort was offset by spending cuts to other programs dear to them. Conservatives appeared to feel their House colleagues had failed to cut short-term spending deeply enough.

The Senate may (or may not) vote Monday on a bill that contains the House level of spending with no offset. 

But the ticking clock may work against Mr. Reid. If his bill cannot pass the chamber — and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said it would not — he will be left with just hours before the federal emergency money runs dry and a House scattered through the nation.

The House has no votes scheduled until October 3, two days after the government would have to shutdown for lack of spending authority, and as before the attitude of the Republican House was a demand to take the House bill, or nothing. 

Speaker John A. Boehner said Friday that the only way to advance the legislation would be for the Senate to capitulate and accept the House bill. “With FEMA expected to run out of disaster funding as soon as Monday, the only path to getting assistance into the hands of American families immediately is for the Senate to approve the House bill,” he said. “This is no time for delay.”

Oh, and even if the House and Senate are able to pass a bill, it will take the country only up until mid November, where once again this same saga will play out. 

Two emotions, sadness and disgust are now waging battle with one another as to which is the dominant reaction to this set of events.  And once again Conservatives hold Americans and American economic activity hostage.