Leaving the Dems Some Hot Potatoes
Outgoing Republicans are passing on spending bills
Democrats are mum on what exactly they'll do next year. "We're entitled to start with a clean slate and so is the president," Obey says. "But his own party in Congress has guaranteed that's not going to happen." Many of the options have political traps, too. If Democrats want to finish the spending bills as soon as possible, they could pass them individually before mid-February or bundle them together into one big omnibus bill. But omnibus bills have a bad reputation for easily hiding lawmakers' pet earmarked projects.
Democrats campaigned this fall on earmark reform and have since reiterated their pledge; Rep. Martin Meehan said last week that party leaders are "committed to earmark reform, transparency in earmarks." But they could wind up passing an earmark reform package at the same time they're forced to resolve the funding problems in February with an earmark-loaded bill of their own. That, says Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group, "would be a politically tone-deaf maneuver."
If they don't resolve the funding problems by mid-February, Democrats could support yet another stopgap resolution through September. But agencies, already bristling at the uncertainty caused by the resolutions, would most likely only step up their complaints-and voters would hear them. "Eventually they have to deal with it," says Horney. "Agencies find it very difficult to operate under a continuing resolution for an extended period."
And there is yet another wrinkle. OMB is knee deep in drawing up the 2008 fiscal year budget that heads to Congress in February, and the president plans to ask for a supplemental emergency spending bill for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan that some estimate could top $100 billion. "It's a distraction," says McMillin of OMB. "At a time when we would like Congress to be looking at our '08 request and thinking about that, they'll be working on other things."
With dollar signs swirling around all these questions come springtime, whatever mess Congress thinks it's in now might just get, well, messier. And for Democrats, there will be fewer opportunities to rail against Republicans. Unless they figure this one out, the warm glow of their victory this fall will seem like a long time ago.
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