Senate Democrats are demanding a sit-down with Republicans to agree on ending spending caps that will restrict spending in the next fiscal year, and are ready to filibuster all spending bills until the GOP gives in.
The Democrats’ plan would create a fiscal showdown with Republicans months sooner than Republicans anticipated.
Minority Leader Harry Reid announced the demand for a “budget summit” on Tuesday, and said only a meeting with the GOP could break the deadlock.
“We can’t wait until this fall,” said Reid, D-Nev. “This matter has to be resolved now.”
In recent years, lawmakers have waited until September and October to work out a final deal over the spending measures they are unable to pass through Congress or get signed into law. The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, and the deadline typically forces Republicans, Democrats and the president to find spending compromises in time to keep the government operating.
But this year, Democrats are looking to finally eliminate the sequester, or the automatic cuts being forced by the 2011 Budget Control Act. To force the GOP’s hand, Democrats are planning on filibustering the appropriations bills, starting with the Department of Defense spending bill that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., plans to bring to the floor as soon as next week.
The Democratic strategy, if successful, would thwart the Republican plan to send at least some completed spending bills to the president’s desk, and shed its longtime reputation for blocking federal spending legislation and causing or threatening government shutdowns. Republicans are hoping that sending completed spending bills to the White House will put political pressure on Obama, who has promised to veto them because they adhere to the sequester caps on domestic programs but boost military spending by raiding an overseas war fund.
The Democratic move could give the minority party more leverage in the spending battle that might otherwise be lost in a last-minute deal cut between the White House and GOP leaders.
But when asked on Tuesday whether Republicans would consider such a budget summit with the Democrats McConnell responded, “No. Of course not.”
While the two parties are bickering about timing, both Republicans and Democrats have called for finding a way to end the sequester, which has forced across-the-board cuts in spending that are so unpopular it has become impossible to pass some House spending bills, even with a Republican majority.
Lawmakers in both chambers have pointed to the compromise Bipartisan Budget Act, struck in December 2013 by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which lifted the spending caps through the 2015 fiscal year.
House and Senate Republicans have been quietly discussing the need to lift the caps, but most had anticipated the deal would happen right before the end of the fiscal year at the earliest and would be negotiated between the White House and top congressional leaders.
But Senate Democrats believe they have a winning strategy to force the GOP to negotiate sooner.
“They’re gonna learn this sooner or later, they’re proceeding down the same path they did when they came close to shutting down the government, when they came close to the fiscal cliff,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the number-three Democrat said. “We know they’re gonna have to back off sooner rather than later. For the good of the country.”
