Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is calling on Republicans to come to the negotiating table with Democrats in order to avoid “the next budget crisis.”
“It is time for Republicans to come to the table, forge a fair budget deal and spare the American people yet another unnecessary, manufactured crisis,” Reid wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times.
Fiscal crises began, Reid argues, when the GOP took control of the House in 2011, and he said it has continued in the first seven months of the Republican-controlled Congress this year.
“In the seven months that Republicans have controlled the Senate, we’ve suffered from the expiration of critical national security tools, come within hours of partially shutting down the Department of Homeland Security and witnessed a complete shutdown of the Export-Import Bank, a previously uncontroversial agency that supports hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” he said.
Republicans are “abusing the funding process to manufacture one of the biggest crises of the past few years,” Reid said, by adding policy provisions to appropriations bills. Reid said Republicans continue to talk about repealing ObamaCare and defunding Planned Parenthood through government spending bills.
Reid said the GOP could hold votes on the Senate floor on these issues that are independent of the appropriations process.
“Holding the government hostage to riders like these is not just wrong — it’s an admission that these proposals are outside the mainstream and lack the support to pass on their own merits,” he said.
Funding increases for the Pentagon must also be matched with “dollar-for-dollar” hikes for domestic programs, Reid said. The White House holds the same position and wants sequestration relief for the next fiscal year.
Before leaving for August recess last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters that Republicans would eventually hold talks over spending, the budget and the debt ceiling in the fall.
McConnell has repeatedly vowed he would not allow any government shutdowns or any defaults on the nation’s debt.
Congress must pass a government spending package by Oct. 1.