The government shutdown that shuttered federal workplaces, furloughed U.S. employees and disrupted the lives of many relying on federal agencies for two weeks last month was a needless exercise that never had a chance of accomplishing its goal, according to U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Neenah.
Ribble broke with fellow Republicans — the only member of Wisconsin’s GOP delegation to do so — to end the shutdown by supporting a bill to fund the government through Jan. 15 and convene a House and Senate conference committee to work out a longer-term budget deal.
Ribble’s vote earned the thanks Friday of a number of local business and community leaders who attended a chat with the congressman at the Shawano Country Chamber of Commerce.
Ribble said it never made any sense to tie funding for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act to a continuing resolution to fund government operations.
“The continuing resolution didn’t have the funding for the Affordable Care Act in it,” he said.
“There was no endgame to this strategy,” Ribble said. “OK, do we shut (the government) down, even default? What is the endgame? No one ever answered for me, ‘what then?’
Ribble still opposes the ACA, better known now as Obamacare, but said it will be up to voters to get rid of it if they don’t like it.
“If it’s as bad as what I think it will be, the American people will make a determination at the next election, and if it’s not, then it’s not,” he said. “But the American people get to make that decision.”
Ribble said he was optimistic that the conference committee could reach a budget agreement and avoid a government shutdown in January.
“Then all the Kabuki dance that’s been going on with continuing resolutions would go away,” he said, “and the the only threat of a government shutdown would be centered around the debt limit.”
That could be breached as soon as Feb. 7 if it isn’t raised, but Ribble called that “a bit of a pretend date.”
He said the Treasury can take extraordinary measures to extend the date by paying some of the government’s bills and putting off others until additional revenue comes in.
“They’ve got some heavy lifting to do, but we’ll see if they can come together on a budget,” Ribble said.
“I don’t think you should be expecting any type of big, grand bargain on entitlement spending or long-range deficit reduction,” he added, “but maybe some deficit reduction built into this package.”
What does concern Ribble, however, is the possible change in cooperative attitude as Congress heads into an election year.
“We saw over the last 30 days how Congress can break into these small groups and dysfunction prevails,” he said. “Any group of 20 or 25 members can hold the rest of the group hostage because it requires 218 votes to pass something and the Republican majority is only 232.”
Despite the often acrimonious atmosphere in the Capitol, Ribble said he felt bipartisanship would ultimately prevail.
“There is an ever-growing body within the Congress that want this government to work correctly,” he said.
Ribble said he expects immigration reform to move forward, but more likely in pieces rather than as any large, comprehensive reform package.
He said he is also expecting a resolution before year’s end on the impasse over the food stamp program that has stalled the Farm Bill.
The House version would cut $40 billion from food stamps over 10 years, while the Senate version would cut $4 billion.
“I’m guessing it will settle in someplace around $10 billion-$12 billion over a decade,” Ribble said.
A longer-term problem, Ribble said, is entitlement spending on Social Security and Medicare.
“At some point, the American people are going to have to deal with long-term spending,” he said.
However, Ribble sounded more positive than many of his Republican peers regarding overall government spending and noted that the deficit situation and economy has improved over the last three years.
Deficit spending has dropped from $1.4 trillion to $680 billion,” he said. “The deficit has been cut in half. Next year it’s projected to be under $400 billion. Things are trending in the right direction. There’s modest growth in the economy, so things are beginning to recover on the revenue side.”
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