WASHINGTON — Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., says there are some spending initiatives that lawmakers in both major parties agree on. Other initiatives, however, are more divisive: President Trump’s idea to upgrade the country’s infrastructure by drawing on local and state government funding, for instance.
“Yeah,” Leahy said during a recent interview in his office in the Capitol, “how many toll roads are you going to put in in Monkton, Vermont?”
But, Leahy said, one key step needs to happen before Congress can take on any major initiatives.
“None of this can be done until we get a budget agreement,” he said. “So I wish people would stop finger-pointing and sit down and work.”
Leahy’s frustration has mounted as time has passed without a long-term spending plan and budget in place. Through the first third of the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the government has relied on short-term spending resolutions.
A few hours before Trump was to deliver his first State of the Union address to Congress, Leahy settled into a comfortable high-backed chair and sipped from a Green Mountain Coffee paper cup in his ceremonial office, a view straight down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial through the window behind him.
The dramatic panorama serves as a backdrop to Leahy’s meetings with foreign dignitaries and his colleagues across the aisle. On warmer days, Leahy takes visitors to the patio outside.
The highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Leahy has for months lamented the lack of a deal to raise spending caps, which were created under a 2011 law.
The law set limits for discretionary spending, which include funding for government operations ranging from the military to the State Department to national parks to social services programs.
If spending packages exceed those caps, the law automatically imposes substantial funding cuts across the board. Congress can raise the budget caps by passing legislation, but it would require bipartisan support to pass in the Senate.
The House has repeatedly passed spending packages that would increase funding for defense initiatives, far exceeding the caps currently in place. On Tuesday, the House passed a $659.2 billion defense spending bill, supported largely by Republicans.
Leahy predicted that the “shoot-the-moon” defense package would not progress through the Senate, because if it passed and were enacted without Congress lifting the budget caps, “then you’re going to see immediate deep, deep cuts in defense.”
Leahy and other Democrats are staunchly opposed to raising spending levels for the military without also increasing the budget for non-defense initiatives.
Last summer, three months before the start of the current fiscal year, Leahy offered a proposal that would raise caps for defense and non-defense spending each by $54 billion — a number based on the budget the Trump administration proposed.
Leahy said it is possible for lawmakers to pass a long-term spending deal, and he believes there is support on both sides of the aisle to strike a bargain. But there is political opposition as well, he said.
“If people want to, we can,” Leahy said. “I’ve talked quietly to a number of Republicans and Democrats who want it to work, who want it to get done, but some in the House … some believe in sound bites over substance and that’s a mistake.”
Unlike the other two members of Vermont’s delegation, Leahy had voted for all three continuing resolutions that kept the government funded for short periods of time last year.
But when a fourth resolution came up in January, Leahy changed his position and voted “no,” helping to block the resolution’s passage, thereby leading to a three-day federal shutdown.
The resolution lawmakers eventually passed in January funded federal operations through Feb. 8. Leahy voted against that measure, too. Now, less than a week before the deadline, the next step is not clear.
Asked whether the shutdown achieved what he hoped it would, Leahy responded: “The one thing it accomplished is that it showed we will basically stick together.”
He said he has since spoken with both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
“This is a clear signal we’ve got to start sitting down and doing our work,” Leahy said.
Additional tensions have arisen in the budget process over a program that offers temporary work authorization for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, which is set to expire on March 5.
Many Democrats have pushed to require that legislation extending that program, known as DACA, be included in any spending package.
Leahy said he wants legislation to extend DACA to pass, and supports including it in budget discussions if it would accomplish that.
“If that can get it done, fine,” he said.
However, he said he is irked by the process of negotiating with the White House, accusing the administration of changing positions.
“The frustrating part is that you had a bipartisan agreement with the president, and then he walks away from it,” Leahy said. “That makes it very difficult.”
