By Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Congress returns on Tuesday with less than a month left to perform one of its core functions – keeping federal agencies funded and averting a partial government shutdown – a job that it has struggled to perform in recent years.
The chamber’s bitter partisan divides have hardened in the first year of President Donald Trump’s new administration, which has angered Democratic lawmakers by deciding not to spend some money previously approved under bipartisan deals, as well as the July passage of a tax-cut bill that nonpartisan analysts said could cause more than 10 million low-income Americans to lose healthcare coverage.
Lawmakers’ work on agreeing on the roughly $1.8 trillion in discretionary spending in the $7 trillion federal budget will be further complicated by expected fights over the release of information related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a former friend of Trump’s, and the administration’s surge of federal agents and National Guard into the capital.
There have been 14 partial government shutdowns since 1981, most of which lasted only a day or two. The most recent stretched over 34 days in December 2018 into January 2019 during Trump’s first term.
Trump’s Republicans hold a 219-212 majority in the House of Representatives and a 53-47 edge in the Senate, though that chamber’s rules require 60 votes to pass most bills, meaning that seven Democrats’ support would be needed to pass a funding bill. A preemptive blame game started this summer over which party would be faulted if Congress fails and a partial government shutdown occurs.
In the lead up to Republicans’ approving Trump’s request for a $9 billion cut to foreign aid and public media, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a July letter that the majority should not expect Democrats to “act as business as usual” in the bipartisan appropriations process due to the party cutting back on funding already approved by Congress.
Schumer faced howls of outrage from some in his party in March after providing the votes for a continuing resolution to keep the government funded, arguing at the time that allowing a government shutdown would have been more damaging.
The Democrats’ full strategy this time around has not yet been defined, but the Democratic leaders have requested a meeting with their Republican counterparts to discuss the deadline. Some Democrats want assurances by Republicans to not unilaterally cut funding if more requests are made by the administration.
“I hope that the process will continue in a bipartisan way as we move toward the September deadline,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a floor speech.
Some Democrats, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, are betting the conservatives would be blamed and that the funding deadline should be used as leverage.
“In September the Republicans are going to need to get a budget through to keep the government open and to do that they are going to need some Democratic votes,” Warren said at a rally in Nebraska in August. Referring to the sweeping tax-cut bill, she added, “You want my vote — and I hope the votes of the rest of these Democrats – then by golly, you can restore healthcare for 10 million Americans!”
The U.S. federal debt is $37.25 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. It has continued to grow under Republican and Democratic administrations as the U.S. Congress continues to authorize the federal government to spend more money than it takes in.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson; Editing by Scott Malone and Andrea Ricci)
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