The government has three more days of funding, counting today, meaning Congress has to work with uncommon speed to avert a shutdown, and it looks like the House is actually coming to the rescue on this one. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has steadfastly refused to give Democrats the one thing they need to support a short-term funding bill that will keep the doors open until early December: assistance to Flint, Michigan to help provide clean, lead-free water to its residents. The Senate already passed Flint aid in a water bill with huge bipartisan support, but that aid is not included in the House version of the bill and until now House Speaker Paul Ryan was opposed to adding it. The specter of a government shutdown this weekend has changed that.
The agreement, worked out between Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), will set up a vote on some Flint money in a water resources bill ― the so-called Water Resources Development Act, or WRDA ― so that House and Senate Democrats feel more comfortable advancing a continuing budget resolution without Flint.
"The amendment represents a bipartisan agreement between Speaker Ryan and Leader Pelosi to allow germane authorization language to be added to WRDA as an amendment that will, at the end of the day, provide the necessary funding Flint needs in the final WRDA conference report," a Pelosi aide told The Huffington Post.
That's a good start, and a vote on the amended water resources bill could come as early as Wednesday. Not that all the problems with avoiding a government shutdown are resolved, because we are talking about the House. Stan Collender, a prominent budget analyst, explains: "You've got Republicans fighting Republicans in the House, you've got Republicans fighting Republicans in the Senate. You've got the election. You've got Donald Trump. You've got so many different things going on that it's hard to just say 'No, [a shutdown] is not going to happen.'" He adds that for the House maniacs, a shutdown is "like a campaign event."
Not to mention there might be people rooting for a shutdown, which is "like a campaign event," for some of these folks in ultraconservative, anti-Washington districts, Collender said. Ryan has to take them on, though, because he has more moderate members he actually has to worry about if there's a wave election for Democrats. Until now, the maniacs haven't been pushing for a shutdown, but the fact that Ryan just worked out this deal with Pelosi and will be relying on Democrats to get out of this mess (just like his predecessor John Boehner did) will enrage them. Because they love to be enraged.
This makes the chances of a government shutdown before the election slimmer, even though it also means the Congress has to work much faster in the next three days than usual. But it means all bets are off for a shutdown when this temporary round of funding ends in December.
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