Think of Washington’s initial 2011 budget fights as spring training — for a season about to open in a hailstorm.
Twice, Congress and the Obama White House have agreed on temporary spending bills that trim spending and keep the government open. Last week’s version averted a shutdown, at least until April 8.
But the pace of play is accelerating, under deteriorating conditions. And practices so far have produced little evidence of confidence-building.
Republican and Democratic negotiators bought time by cutting the easiest $10 billion, from discredited projects and programs. Closing the remaining $50 billion gap for the last half of this fiscal year will require steeper reductions from a small slice of the budget.
“There needs to be a global solution,” said Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, one of a half-dozen senators from both parties seeking a long-term fix. Meantime, he said, “There’s growing frustration with this inability to predict how long the government is going to stay open.”
Yet a comprehensive fix means two teams with weak batting averages must hit a series of 100 mile-per-hour fastballs.
For most Republicans, “global” means cutting not just discretionary spending, but also the enormous “entitlements” of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the House Budget Committee, promises his forthcoming 2012 blueprint will take that risky step.
For most Democrats, “global” means collecting additional taxes, as well. That step, under discussion by Mr. Warner’s “Gang of Six,” is also risky.
So is the prospect that the United States might shake investor confidence by defaulting on its obligations. That could happen if Congress fails to raise the federal debt limit once the current ceiling is reached sometime this spring.
Leading Republicans say they will raise it only if Democrats accept more spending reductions. As if the showdown needed any more complications, the military confrontation with Libya throws a curve at the possibility of cuts to the Pentagon budget.
In other words, the game will not get easier after Opening Day.
Thinking Long Term
One reason: some on both sides feel they are losing.
Conservative Republicans think that slow-motion, piecemeal spending cuts have undercut momentum from their election triumph last November. By defying their leaders and opposing last week’s stopgap “continuing resolution,” 54 House Republicans signaled that unease.
Liberal Democrats consider spending cuts economically counterproductive amid high unemployment, and see further reductions as threats to cherished priorities. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, sought to draw a line by vowing, “I will not support tinkering with Social Security.”
Steve Bell, a former Senate Republican budget aide now at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said “the reason I am pessimistic is that the scar tissue” from the from stopgap spending battle could affect negotiations over 2012 and beyond.
A longer-term negotiation is what Mr. Warner and five colleagues, from both parties, are conducting. The White House is encouraging their effort from afar as a potential way out if negotiations falter on short-term spending and the debt limit.
The six senators are using recommendations from President Obama’s deficit-reduction commission as a template. Neither the president nor Republican leaders has embraced those recommendations, however.
“Nobody ever won the office pool by betting on the success of bipartisanship,” said Bruce Reed, who assisted the deficit-reduction commission and is now chief of staff to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “But the Gang of Six is bringing Republicans and Democrats together, the way Washington should work.”
Possible Compromise
Prospects for compromise appeared to brighten last week when 64 senators, 32 from each party, urged Mr. Obama to seek a “comprehensive” solution touching all three hot-buttons — discretionary spending, entitlements, and taxes.
But the path from hortatory letter to long-term deal is steep. Newly empowered House Republicans would have to accept more taxes ; Senate Democrats, fighting to keep their majority in 2012, would have to accept cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Referring to the Gang of Six, Robert Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said, “The probability that their fruit will ripen to an eatable state is very low.”
A least-common-denominator outcome might yield targets for limiting spending and deficits as a proportion of the economy. As with the 1980s-era “Gramm-Rudman” efforts, it could include enforcement mechanisms to require later policy choices for meeting those targets.
But even that possible fallback has not eased fears of stalemate. The Federal Reserve chairman,
Ben S. Bernanke, has warned that
tying a debt-limit increase to a long-term budget deal would risk default and fresh financial “chaos” as the nation tries to leave the 2008 crisis behind.
“The idea that this time some folks want to start the fire. . .” Mr. Warner said, his words trailing off. “You just have to hope cooler heads will prevail.”