WASHINGTON — Like self-loathing adrenaline junkies, members of Congress live on the brink while claiming not to like it.
Witness the repeated professions of hate for “brinkmanship” by members of both parties as they waltz toward the precipice. But there’s little reason to believe governing by crisis will end anytime soon.
This month, lawmakers and President Barack Obama careened over the brink and into a 16-day partial government shutdown, then were forced to reach a deal by the specter of a default on federal obligations.
The deal, of course, sets up another set of deadlines: Jan. 15 when government funding expires and Feb. 7 for the debt ceiling, though the Treasury Department could use “extraordinary measures” to extend the debt deadline.
The divided government has lived this way since we elected it in 2011, with the near-shutdown of April 2011, followed by the August 2011 almost-breach of the debt ceiling, the New Year’s “fiscal cliff” deal and this month’s shutdown.
It makes Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, wistful for the must-pass deadlines of yore: Congressional recess, when “jet fumes” are the most powerful motivators. No economic damage wrought by bumping up against those.
Isakson hopes this deadline-buster was bad enough – rating agency Standard & Poor’s estimates the country lost $24 billion of economic activity in the shutdown – to rattle people into shape.
“Maybe the shutdown, which I didn’t think was a good idea, was so much poison that it will put some pressure on people to do our jobs,” Isakson said.
Georgia’s junior senator has been critical of the tactic pushed by his colleague Ted Cruz and conservatives in the U.S. House to attach funding of the new health care law to the threat of a shutdown.
The 11th-hour deal gained virtually nothing for Republicans legislatively, though Rep. Tom Graves of Ranger said there was a victory in showing the public that Republicans really, really don’t like the law known as Obamacare.
“It is clear to the American people who wants to protect them from the law — the Republican Party — and who does not — the president and (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid,” Graves said.
via Don’t bet on an end to legislating by crisis | www.myajc.com.
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