Last week, in a fit of fury after they lost the ability to filibuster President Obama's nominees, several Congressional Republicans threatened to retaliate by slowing things down on Capitol Hill. Democrats "will have trouble in a lot of areas because there's going to be a lot of anger," said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, specifically warning that a United Nations disability treaty was now in danger of being rejected for the second time.
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It's hard to see how Republicans could slow things down more than they already have for the last several years. Yes, they can prevent committees from meeting and add days of wasted time to every nomination and bill. Just after the filibuster vote, in fact, Senate Republicans refused a routine request for unanimous consent to approve several of the president's uncontested nominees.
But the larger business of governing is already being cast aside. As Politico recently reported, the current Congress has only enacted 49 laws, the fewest since 1947. That's a mark of pride to Tea Party nihilists, but, for the rest of the country, which expects action on fundamentals like jobs and immigration, it's a mark of shame.
When lawmakers left town for the Thanksgiving vacation, they missed their deadline to complete a farm bill. House Republicans want to use the bill to cut food stamps by $40 billion over a decade, which would end benefits for at least three million people during each of those years. Democrats are refusing to let this happen (though, unfortunately, they have proposed their own $4 billion cut). The resulting stalemate could drive up the price of milk.
Republicans continued their filibuster of the annual defense authorization bill after Democrats resisted their attempts to add unrelated amendments imposing new sanctions on Iran and repealing health care reform. The bill has been passed every year for a half-century, but this year could break that streak.
The House has refused to take up important legislation passed by the Senate to reform the immigration system and punish workplace discrimination against gay and lesbian employees. In addition, more than 1.3 million people will lose unemployment insurance at the end of the year, and the House has shown no interest in renewing it.
The most immediate priority for Congress is to reach a budget agreement by mid-December, to relieve the sequester cuts that have decimated so many important programs and now threaten the Pentagon's readiness beginning next year. Negotiators from both chambers have had more than a month to come up with a solution, but Representative Paul Ryan, the House budget chairman, has resisted the most obvious one: ending a group of tax loopholes for the very rich and using the money to replace the worst aspects of the sequester. Instead, he simply wants to make other cuts, or raise fees on purchases like airline tickets and duck stamps that affect many people of modest means, thereby protecting high-end tax shelters.
The House is back next week, but the Senate will remain on vacation, leaving only a few workdays before the deadline of Dec. 13 to reach an agreement. Without one, the government will have to be paid for with yet another short-term continuing resolution — a symbol of dysfunction that seems to have no end.
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