Ina statement signaling Obama administration agreement with the House and Senatedeal for a six month continuing resolution to fund federal government agenciespast the upcoming elections, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also tookthe opportunity to let legislators know President Obama is not likely to agreeto any 2013 budget cuts below the $1.047 trillion spending cap passed in lastyear’s Budget Control Act. Carney’s statement points out that while theadministration welcomes the agreement, heading off massive layoff warnings toemployees of federal government contractors, is a “welcome development,” butwarns the president “has made clear that it is essential that the legislationto fund the government adheres to the funding levels agreed to by both partieslast year, and not include ideological or extraneous policy riders.”
Withthe beginning of federal fiscal year 2013 less than two months away, the Househas passed only six of the needed spending bills, with House AppropriationsCommittee approval of five more. There has been no action whatsoever onspending legislation in the Senate. Both houses will begin a six week summerrecess days from now.
Thecontinuing resolution will not be introduced or passed until Congress comesback into session in September, but the administration’s announcement ofagreement with the deal between Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Reid iscertainly enough to let corporate lawyers at huge government contractorsbreathe more easily as they decide not to have their companies pass out WARNAct layoff notices to hundreds of thousands of their co-workers. The economicpanic likely to have resulted from such mass notifications could not havehelped either party in the upcoming Presidential and Congressional elections.
Ourpolitical leaders should all be severely embarrassed that it nearly alwaystakes until the day before legal deadlines expire to get anything at all donein this gridlocked Washington D.C. political world, despite the fact that theagreed action is really helpful to citizens and constituents of both parties,and for the nation as a whole.
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