This afternoon, Reuters has an article entitled "House Averts Government Shutdown" which described the passage in the House of a continuing resolution to fund government activities through the end of the current fiscal year. Here, in part, is how Reuters describes what happened:
Republicans chose not to use the threat of federal agencies running out of money and shutting down as leverage to demand deep spending cuts.
Anyone not familiar with what happened would think that the GOP has been threatening some sort of government shutdown in order to get its way but that it has now changed its mind and stopped that attempt. This is totally false. The House passed the funding for the government two weeks ago and sent the measure to the Democrat controlled senate which dawdled for weeks deciding how to proceed. Late yesterday, the senate finally passed a continuing resolution which had a few small amendments to the version passed by the House. The House action this morning was just passing the amended version which accepts the senate amendments. There was no threat by the House GOP to shut down the government. There was no threat by anyone to shut down the government. In other words, nothing was done to "avert" a stoppage of the government. Also, no one demanded spending cuts aside from those included in the sequester. To be clear, neither the Republicans or the Democrats sought such further cuts. In short, the entire focus of the Reuters article is phony.
The one thing that this latest funding bill does do is to give most government departments the ability to switch the focus of the sequestration cuts to those programs which are less important. It is no longer true that the government has no discretion where to make the cuts. This authority (which president Obama did not want) will now let Obama lessen the impact of sequestration by pushing to cuts to places that can better sustain the reductions. Remember this when you next hear about lines at the airports or about how food inspections are being cut. The money is there to avoid all such cuts. If they happen, it will be by the choice of the Obama administration. It now has the responsibility. (Oh, the horror of it all!)
Republicans chose not to use the threat of federal agencies running out of money and shutting down as leverage to demand deep spending cuts.
Anyone not familiar with what happened would think that the GOP has been threatening some sort of government shutdown in order to get its way but that it has now changed its mind and stopped that attempt. This is totally false. The House passed the funding for the government two weeks ago and sent the measure to the Democrat controlled senate which dawdled for weeks deciding how to proceed. Late yesterday, the senate finally passed a continuing resolution which had a few small amendments to the version passed by the House. The House action this morning was just passing the amended version which accepts the senate amendments. There was no threat by the House GOP to shut down the government. There was no threat by anyone to shut down the government. In other words, nothing was done to "avert" a stoppage of the government. Also, no one demanded spending cuts aside from those included in the sequester. To be clear, neither the Republicans or the Democrats sought such further cuts. In short, the entire focus of the Reuters article is phony.
The one thing that this latest funding bill does do is to give most government departments the ability to switch the focus of the sequestration cuts to those programs which are less important. It is no longer true that the government has no discretion where to make the cuts. This authority (which president Obama did not want) will now let Obama lessen the impact of sequestration by pushing to cuts to places that can better sustain the reductions. Remember this when you next hear about lines at the airports or about how food inspections are being cut. The money is there to avoid all such cuts. If they happen, it will be by the choice of the Obama administration. It now has the responsibility. (Oh, the horror of it all!)
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