As shutdown looms, suburban members look to debt ceiling

As a government shutdown looms, two suburban members of Congress are launching plans to focus on the next funding battle — the debt ceiling — even as a fight over the current one is far from over.

Rep. Joe Walsh, a tea party member from McHenry, on Thursday filed his first piece of legislation — a balanced-budget amendment designed to serve as a companion to the piece introduced in the Senate last week and supported by each of the upper chamber's 47 Republicans.

And Rep. Peter Roskam, the Republican chief deputy whip, has begun a push to educate residents of his DuPage County district about what drives up the national debt and potential solutions, said Dan Conston, Roskam's communications director.

That effort includes an upcoming teletownhall, public policy talks, and several YouTube videos about government spending and debt and possible solutions, Conston said.

Walsh and Roskam, as well as Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Springfield, each say the current battle about how to fund government through Sept. 30 is overshadowing other pressing issues, including the debt ceiling, which the nation is expected to hit later this spring. That would trigger a halt in borrowing. Many lawmakers want the borrowing limit raised, for fear the economic recovery will be stunted.

Yet nearly all the debate now is about a budget year that is more than half over.

A temporary three-week government funding solution — the sixth such measure approved by Congress this fiscal year — will expire at midnight Friday.

The House Thursday passed on a 247-181 vote another one-week measure, cutting $12 million from the federal budget, but funding the department of defense for the remainder of the fiscal year. The funding of troops has become a major Republican talking point in the latest discussions.

If the Senate rejects this latest deal and another agreement is not reached, a government shutdown will go into effect, closing national parks and museums across the country, halting the processing of visas and passports, and putting an approximate 800,000 federal workers on furlough, among other things.

Yet the sides and chambers appeared — as of Thursday evening — far from an agreement and quick to point fingers.

“I hope we avoid a shutdown but I don't know if we will,” Roskam said. “The other side is playing politics.”

Roskam said it has been 47 days since the Republican-controlled House approved a permanent funding plan, which was soundly rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate in mid-march.

Durbin, assistant majority leader in the Senate, said that while an agreement is close to being reached, “tea party members insist on the inclusion of language promoting a social agenda that is unrelated to the federal deficit.”

In a passionate speech on the Senate floor, Durbin recalled the government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996.

“I certainly didn't believe it would be a long shutdown but it turned out to be over two weeks before it was over,” Durbin said. “And it was a period of profound embarrassment for all of us who served in Congress that we had reached a point where our efforts to find common ground had failed.”

Walsh said he's been disheartened for most of the week, though he felt “somewhat encouraged” by a Republican conference meeting on Wednesday.

“The support for what the speaker is doing, he's got us all behind him,” Walsh said.

“You don't want a shutdown but you can't be afraid of a showdown,” he said.

“We need to be willing to go to midnight Friday to force the other side's hand.”