A federal labor union has announced it opposes a bill that would prevent the government from undergoing another shutdown because it says the legislation would make it easy for Congress to intentionally underfund agencies.
In a fact sheet sent this week to members of the House Appropriations Committee, the American Federation of Government Employees blasted the Government Shutdown Prevention Act as a way for Congress to make across-the-board cuts in agency budgets by not passing appropriations and then allowing the safety mechanism the act envisions to kick in. Under the act, if Congress does not pass an appropriations bill for an agency, the agency would receive an automatic appropriation totaling 98 percent of the previous fiscal year's appropriation. That way, the bill's sponsors argue, the government could continue to function if Congress misses the fiscal year deadline.
AFGE spokeswoman Diane Witiak said the law would act as "a safety valve for Congress members. That's not responsible government."
"The ostensible rationale of this legislation is that lawmakers will come back to the bargaining table if spending is cut across the board," AFGE wrote in its fact sheet. "If you'll pardon the sarcasm, why not increase spending across-the-board? In the prevailing anti-spending environment, wouldn't lawmakers, in order to protect the interests of taxpayers, come to agreement more quickly if agencies were deliberately overfunded? Of course!"
AFGE says the Congress and the president have a responsibility to meet the fiscal year calendar deadlines.
"If the 98 percent solution were to be enacted, the president and the Congress would be abdicating that responsibility, instead requiring federal employees to do the same or perhaps even more with less," AFGE wrote.
"That's really ludicrous," said Mark Buse, a spokesman for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who sponsored the bill. "That would be a clumsy way to go about cutting an agency."
Buse said the intent of the act is to keep the government running in the event of a budget disagreement and prevent government employees from being furloughed.
"It's a stopgap," Buse said. "I don't think members are going to voluntarily cede their appropriating authority."
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