Washington's Focus on Breaking Spending Caps A Major Problem

The 2014 Senate takeover by the Republican party presented an opportunity for Congress to return to regular order and pass appropriations bills to fund the government.  You know, the way it’s supposed to happen. That opportunity has been squandered and the country is now just days away, once again, from running out of money and a potential government shutdown. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) and others have been calling on Congress to pass appropriations bills instead of waiting for deadlines to nearly hit and passing short-term stop-gap spending measures. Unfortunately, those calls have been ignored and now a more important fight is creeping up: the debate over raising the Budget Control Act (BCA) spending level caps and undoing sequestration.

The Wall Street Journal’s Kristina Peterson reported last week on the possibility of busting the caps coming this year:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Wednesday that Republicans would “inevitably” enter into discussions with the White House later this year over raising federal spending limits, reviving a debate within the GOP.

The problem with Washington today is that the only thing that ever seems to be a “possibility” is the inevitability of spending more taxpayer money. This is why the appropriations process is so critical, it provides for an orderly process that usually avoids last minute crises.

Beyond the usual reasoning of not wanting to spend more taxpayer money on government when there is room for reduction, there several key reasons why the BCA caps are important and why Congress should keep them in place:

• The BCA caps are responsible for cuts in real time, as opposed to promised cuts in the future

• The growth in government spending is now at a slower rate than before the BCA caps were out into place

• Lawmakers who want to show they can walk the walk on reducing government spending have the BCA caps to help them prove it

The threat of a government shutdown is another reason this debate over busting the caps is dominating the halls of Congress. President Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill are using next week’s September 30^th deadline to force GOP leaders to budge on raising spending levels for 2016 and beyond.  According to The Hill:

President Obama, along with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), has even gone so far as to threaten a government shutdown if Congress does not acquiesce to his demands, and break the budget caps established in 2011 under the Budget Control Act.

Nobody wants a government shutdown, including TPA. The move by the President highlights even more the need to get back to regular order in Washington and the risk involved when leaving appropriations bills to be scuttled by House rules and debates over unrelated issues like the Confederate flag.

TPA’s Summer Reading series reiterated the point that the government needed to be funded but spending levels set forth on the BCA had to preserved (click here). The negative consequences for Congressional leadership going forward if the caps are broken present a real challenge in 2016. Without any credibility on the issue of reducing the size of government, lawmakers will face angry voters unlikely to send them back to Washington.

The negotiations over a short-term spending bill will continue this week, but with only days left till the money runs out there are two key sticking points that TPA cannot stress enough. First, there shouldn’t be a government shutdown; there is simply nothing to gain, politically or substantively, by shutting down the government. Second, the BCA caps cannot be compromised. Budget negotiations, congressional leadership’s credibility, and taxpayer money are all at stake. Keeping the caps and moving away from a shutdown will provide greater opportunity to reduce spending in the long-term and TPA hopes that will be the prevailing wisdom in this fight.