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Congress Reaches
Historic Deal, But Fiscal Battles Loom on the Horizon
Published April 10, 2011
A series of spending battles await Congress following the expected
passage of the 2011 budget bill next week, as Democrats and Republicans
will continue clashing over the nation’s fiscal responsibilities moving
forward.
With a last-minute budget deal, Congress averted a federal government
shutdown Friday night.
On Saturday, President Obama signed a short term spending deal that
will allow the government to pay for federal operations through Friday.
The measure was needed to keep the government open long enough for
Congress to sign off on the budget deal reached just before the
midnight deadline Friday by Obama, Republican House Speaker John
Boehner and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Obama made an unannounced trip from the White House to the Lincoln
Memorial on Saturday to make clear that the country’s national parks
and monuments are open for business. The sites would have been closed
in a government shutdown.
Thursday: President Obama and Vice President Biden enter the White
House briefing room to speak to the media after a meeting with House
Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,
D-Nev., on the budget and possible government shutdown.
“Because Congress was able to settle its differences, that’s why this
place is open today and everybody’s able to enjoy their visit,” Obama
told tourists on the steps of the memorial.
The Friday deal included $38.5 billion in spending cuts while leaving
the more contentious policy matters, such as blocking funding for
Planned Parenthood, for a later debate.
But the epic clash between Democrats and Republicans was just the first
of a series of fiscal fights as two more battles loom on the horizon --
the national debt ceiling and then the 2012 budget.
“We’re gonna have a fight in a couple of months over the debt ceiling.
We’re gonna have a fight over the 2012 budget,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger,
R-Ill, told Fox News Saturday. “This is not basically the last fight
here. This is the first opening salvo in a real attempt to bring back
the size of government and start living within our means.”
The Treasury Department has told Congress it will hit its $14.3
trillion borrowing limit no later than mid-May and Republicans hope to
use the issue to force President Obama to accept long-term
deficit-reduction measures.
“The president’s asked us to raise the debt ceiling and Senate
Republicans and House Republicans, and I hope many Democrats as well,
are going to say, Mr. President, in order to raise the debt ceiling, we
need to do something significant about the debt,” Senate Republican
Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Friday night.
The White House has warned that not lifting the debt ceiling could lead
to a default on the national debt and harm the economy, which appears
to be picking up steam. If there is a stalemate, the Treasury could
avoid defaulting for several weeks by using a number of tricks but it
would eventually run out of options.
Lifting the debt ceiling is never easy and in this political
environment, where Tea Party activists are pressuring Republican
leaders to slash federal spending, a rough fight is all but guaranteed.
The fight over the 2012 budget won’t be a picnic either. The budget
deal that Republicans and Democrats negotiated Friday night is for 2011
and funds the government through the end of September with $38.5
billion in spending cuts.
But House Republicans intend to pass a 2012 budget next week that would
cut $6.2 trillion in spending over the next decade calls for sweeping
changes in the Medicare and Medicaid health programs.
Democrats have already called House Budget Committee Chairman Paul
Ryan’s plan an attack on the elderly and the poor.
But in the Republican radio address, Ryan warned of a coming crisis.
“Unless we act soon, government spending on health and retirement
programs will crowd out spending on everything else, including national
security. It will literally take every cent of every federal tax dollar
just to pay for these programs,” Ryan said Saturday.
House Speaker John Boehner has said that the fight over the 2011 budget
is likely to repeat itself in the next coming months.
“It’s taken us some time to get acquainted with each other and to work
our way through this, because understand that this process that we’re
in is likely to be repeated a number of times this year,” Boehner said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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