The Perverse Logic of the Government Shutdown

By Gregory S. Casey, BIPAC President & CEO

The reason the American people hold Congress and the federal government in such low esteem is on daily display. A government shutdown is a colossal failure of leadership. It's a dumb idea that gets dumber the longer it goes on and there isn't a party involved that doesn't share some blame. For my friends on the right, elections have consequences. If you want to change public policies like ObamaCare you have to win elections. For my friends on the left, if you insist on passing and implementing legislation outside of regular order (which has been the case with ObamaCare) then don't cry foul when the opposition fights back outside of regular order. Process matters. For the Obama Administration, you ARE the President. This is your government. Blame is not leadership and you cannot abdicate your responsibility to an officer of a political party, which is what the Senate majority leader actually is. So much for the obvious.

What may be more important is the not so obvious. It occurs to me as it has to some others, the "clean" continuing resolution (CR) the President and his political party are so righteously insisting be passed without any change is a greater perversion of the legislative process than attempts by the House to defund ObamaCare by funding the rest of the government piecemeal.

Consider the facts beyond the hyperbole. A CR isn't regular order. It is itself the result of the failure to operate within the process established by law. That legal process requires an annual budget resolution and a series of steps resulting in the passage of 12 separate appropriations bills. In other words, regular order IS a piecemeal approach within a legal framework. That framework includes a conference to work out disagreements and compromise is a normal outcome. The Senate majority leader, clearly in charge of the administration's strategy, opposes ANY compromise and rejects nearly every form of regular order. Last year he unilaterally proclaimed it unnecessary to pass a budget resolution for this year because The Budget Control Act of August 2011 (the father of sequestration) already established the budget parameters. This year he protested those very same parameters and led the Senate to pass a "deeming resolution" described by the Congressional Research Service thusly: "The term 'deeming resolution' is not officially defined, nor is there any specific statute or rule authorizing such legislation."

The U.S. House has its own share of the absurd. Trying to defund ObamaCare is like trying to defund a speed limit. It's a law. You don't defund laws. You change them through the legislative process. However, the House position on postponing aspects of ObamaCare derives some legitimacy from the actions of the administration to unilaterally postpone selective portions they aren't fully ready to embrace themselves. It seems disingenuous in the extreme for the Senate to call as "outrageously outside the norm" House activity to postpone portions of ObamaCare when they have embraced similar behavior.

The House also has history on its side in its attempt to keep portions of the government running by passing piecemeal funding bills. Even President Clinton embraced partial funding of government functions that were not a part of the policy dispute causing the shutdown during his administration. That is in sharp contrast to the scorched earth attitude of this administration which seems focused on making the government shutdown as difficult on as many people as possible.

Meanwhile, there really are some adults in the room. The two Appropriations Committee Chairs, Congressman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), have quietly worked well together to execute their obligations. For her part, Senator Mikulski has managed to get 11 of the 12 appropriations bills passed through her committee. Unfortunately not a single one has made it to the Senate floor. Congressman Rogers has studiously focused on doing the same thing and has helped craft the partial funding bills now piling up at the Senate's door. In a world of regular order these two real legislators would be finding ways to resolve differences without the drama and pettiness that is so maddening to the bulk of America.

Some believe this government shutdown fiasco will somehow help us avoid an even dumber default on our debt when the government hits the statutory debt ceiling later this month. Let us hope so. There are plenty of good, thoughtful people in Congress from both political parties who understand the need for compromise. They need to step up regardless of party or philosophical purity. We in the business community need to recognize and help them.