In
a statement signaling Obama administration agreement with the House and Senate
deal for a six month continuing resolution to fund federal government agencies
past the upcoming elections, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also took
the opportunity to let legislators know President Obama is not likely to agree
to any 2013 budget cuts below the $1.047 trillion spending cap passed in last
year’s Budget Control Act. Carney’s statement points out that while the
administration welcomes the agreement, heading off massive layoff warnings to
employees of federal government contractors, is a “welcome development,” but
warns the president “has made clear that it is essential that the legislation
to fund the government adheres to the funding levels agreed to by both parties
last year, and not include ideological or extraneous policy riders.”
With
the beginning of federal fiscal year 2013 less than two months away, the House
has passed only six of the needed spending bills, with House Appropriations
Committee approval of five more. There has been no action whatsoever on
spending legislation in the Senate. Both houses will begin a six week summer
recess days from now.
The
continuing resolution will not be introduced or passed until Congress comes
back into session in September, but the administration’s announcement of
agreement with the deal between Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Reid is
certainly enough to let corporate lawyers at huge government contractors
breathe more easily as they decide not to have their companies pass out WARN
Act layoff notices to hundreds of thousands of their co-workers. The economic
panic likely to have resulted from such mass notifications could not have
helped either party in the upcoming Presidential and Congressional elections.
Our
political leaders should all be severely embarrassed that it nearly always
takes until the day before legal deadlines expire to get anything at all done
in this gridlocked Washington D.C. political world, despite the fact that the
agreed action is really helpful to citizens and constituents of both parties,
and for the nation as a whole.
