Mere days before a scheduled Dec. 11 deadline, the ever-fractious Republican House may be arriving at a consensus, of sorts, on immigration, taxes and spending. The speaker of the House, John A. Boehner, R-Ohio,, has said his GOP majority would be willing to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year in September, except for the Department of Homeland Security, which would be funded only through February — as a protest against what Republicans consider President Barack Obama’s unconstitutional order to defer deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the probable next chairman of the House tax-policy committee, has offered a one-year, backward-looking reauthorization of more than 50 mostly corporate tax breaks — a “tax extender” bill — to cover the 2014 filing year.
The best that can be said for this is it could be a lot worse. First, Republicans could have been unable to control their ultras, who might have been willing to risk another government shutdown to make their point about the president’s immigration policy. It appears, though, that Boehner has been able to persuade his troops they dare not risk a repeat of the politically disastrous 2013 shutdown. Second, while the tax extenders bill would not be paid for, and thus would add $45 billion to the deficit, it is so short-lived it could leave the door open to a wider, and permanent, corporate tax reform next year.
Now it’s the Democrats, both in the Senate and the White House, who have a choice to make: whether to hold out for a guarantee of full-year funding for Homeland Security, or take the deal Republicans are offering and let the 113th Congress close up shop at long last. Dollar-wise, there’s very little of substance at stake — Republicans are probably going to fund Homeland Security at some level in March — so we hope Democrats will proceed pragmatically.
If it can be achieved, which is admittedly still a big if, this minimalistic agreement would stand as a fitting monument to the low productivity for which this Congress will forever be known. Instead of actually using the lame-duck session to advance politically risky but necessary causes, such as cleaning up the tax code, as some had dared to hope, this Congress seems content to slink away from Washington having declared the most tenuous of partisan truces.
The Defense Department will not be adequately funded even as the president asks it to fight another war. Postponed yet again, the big issues of tax and entitlement reform now await the 114th Congress. This is, as we said, better than some alternatives, but it is a far cry from the quality of governance the American people have a right to expect.