The storm over disaster aid in the United States

Some 13 percent of Americans approve of how Congress is doing its job, while 83 percent disapprove. Nearly 22 percent of Americans say the country is on the right track; 72 percent say no, the country is on the wrong track.

If you were a member of Congress, these averages of recent survey results from multiple pollsters ― chronicled by RealClearPolitics.com ― might make you pause. You might ask yourself existential questions such as, Why am I here? And why do citizens keep paying me?

Or you could take the more casual approach to not delivering solutions. You could subject your constituents to yet another display of brinkmanship over federal finances. You could get within a week of a government shutdown and hope people see that the other side of the political aisle ― never your side ― is thoroughly to blame for everything this side of that missing satellite.

Hey, that’s the approach you and your Capitol Hill colleagues took the last time around. In mid-summer the issue was whether you would let the United States of America risk defaulting on its debt (close, but no, as it turned out) and also lose its stellar credit rating (yes, unfortunately). This time the issue has been whether a spat over disaster relief funds would lead to a shutdown of the federal government when Washington’s fiscal year limps to an end Friday.

We watched this dispute proceed from hot to low-boil last week, wondering if politicians appreciate how many people are cozying up to the once-terrifying phrase “shutdown of the federal government.” Senate Democrats had wanted to authorize spending $6.9 billion in disaster aid to storm-battered states. House Republicans saw $3.65 billion as sufficient ― and said they wanted $1.6 billion of that amount to come from other spending that’s close to Democratic hearts: $1.5 billion from an automotive fuel efficiency program, plus $100 million from the clean-energy loan fund at the core of the unfolding Solyndra scandal.

The upshot: Whether and how to fund disaster payouts was holding up passage of a bigger bill to keep the government running from Saturday until Nov. 18.

Many taxpayers who watched the tension build over recent days no doubt scratched their heads: Both parties in Congress now agreed that we ought to spend $3.65 billion in disaster relief. Democrats wanted to add all of that amount to the national debt; Republicans wanted to pay for part of that spending by cutting the budget elsewhere. Anyone who doesn’t know better would see this as a minor issue for a government that borrows $4 billion every day.

But that’s the problem: Americans have a national debt of almost $15 trillion precisely because, whenever a worthy purpose comes along, Congress tends to approve more borrowing. Many American households have behaved in much the same way, which is why we have busy bankruptcy courts.

What’s really afoot here? Democrats don’t want to partially fund disaster aid with budget cuts elsewhere because, well, that’s not how Washington typically funds disaster aid. This would set a precedent. (Pause here to think whatever you will about lawmakers who are determined to maintain spending practices that have run up a debt of almost $15 trillion. Why would they want to, um, take money from elsewhere to pay for some of the disaster aid? Because borrowing and borrowing and borrowing has worked so splendidly for the U.S. and its taxpayers. … )

The Republicans who have fought adding another $3.65 billion to the debt are making a larger point: They want to disrupt the protocols, the history, the politesse that constitute spending-as-usual in Washington. They are advancing the radical-to-Congress notion that the government shouldn’t disburse money that … it … doesn’t … have.

This puts Democrats in a spectacularly awkward spot. They’re defending more borrowing because they don’t want to pay for even less than half of the $3.65 billion with what Washington calls “offsets” elsewhere in the budget. Good luck selling that one to an American public already infuriated by the amount of taxpayer debt its political class has imposed.

We say this realizing that a disaster-aid deal could be cut before you read this. Then again, Friday might come and go without an agreement to keep the government running. We’ll all see what happens next and then ruminate on what it all means.

For today, though, our point is simple, direct: Congress and, at times, the White House keep subjecting Americans to squabbles between officeholders who want to reduce deficits and other officeholders who give lip service to that cause ― but who mostly want to keep spending.

And Washington wonders why unemployment is high, business investment is low, and confidence in this nation’s future is at such low ebb. 

(Editorial, Chicago Tribune)

(MCT Information Services)