While public attention was focused on Republican presidential candidates and a plummeting satellite, Congress has been trying to pass another short-term funding bill.
The fear of a government shutdown, which didnt come to pass last time, is not so potent this time. Politicians may have gotten the message that their constituents dont like that sort of threat. Many want to bring government under control; few want to do it by throwing the lives of their friends and neighbors into chaos. Distaste for bringing military pay and Social Security checks into play was almost universal, and Americans have little stomach for a similar debate over disaster assistance for areas stricken by tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, drought and fires.
Republicans point out they have no intention of withholding such payments; they just want to make certain that the $3.65 billion in emergency spending is offset by reductions elsewhere. Democrats counter that without a funding measure, or at least one that exempts FEMA payments from the wrangling, the checks wont go out. Both of those positions are reasonable, but the debate really isnt about FEMA.
Neither is it about how best to reduce government spending, a goal that no one opposes. If that were the issue, Congress would be talking about how to transition laid-off federal workers into jobs in the private sector. Those jobs are few and far between, and hardly anyone wants to talk about how cutting government spending increases unemployment at a time when the economy is already fragile. Jobs that are truly unnecessary should be eliminated, and workers who are not performing should be fired, but its dishonest to pretend that all federal employees are immediately expendible.
Talking about $15 sodas also is not productive. That problem can be tackled without an act of Congress, and it should be, by federal employees anxious to save their jobs, because money eaten up by fraud, waste and abuse isnt available to be spent on wages. Such waste is rarely political, and solutions must be administrative, not legislative, because legislators cannot effectively stem waste while arguing that their own partys projects are sacred.
The debate really is about which party will have the most power after the 2012 election. The recent congressional culture has rewarded the hard-line stances of politicians who vote against bills without the responsibility of offering palatable alternatives, because electoral victory next year seems more important than progress this year.
Voters should demand progress. They should say to their elected representatives, You may be winning, but we are not. This is not what we sent you to Washington to do. We dont want you to revisit the same arguments, time after time, when you could be crafting real solutions.
That this latest round of posturing has been less traumatic than the last poses a risk in itself. Every time around, Americans pay less attention. They have less faith in their ability to make Washington understand what life is like out here in the real world. What voters want most is common sense, and its nowhere in sight. Its no wonder they want to vote all the bums out of office.
A series of short-term funding measures is not a coherent budget. Its not responsible, and its not responsive to constituents, who shouldnt have to wonder several times each year what Congress is threatening not to pay this time around.