Twelve years after conservative Republicans in Congress were blamed for shutting down the government, they are introducing legislation to ensure that government continues to function no matter what.

Anticipating a showdown with Democrats that could force government offices to close, President Bush is backing the legislation.

Now conservatives say it is Democrats who want to force a government shutdown in order to coerce President Bush into accepting an additional $23 billion in spending.

“The Democrats intend to play chicken with the president because the president has said he will veto bills,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.), chairman of the conservative Senate Republican Steering Committee. “The Democrats want to frighten Republicans in Congress and the American people.”

The partisan maneuvering is becoming more intense because the law funding the federal government expires at the end of this month and Congress has yet to pass any of the 12 annual spending bills. Democratic leaders and Bush’s senior aides expect to be locked in heated negotiations over government spending until mid-December.

DeMint believes Democratic leaders will attempt to force the president’s hand by offering their spending bills as a more tempting alternative to allowing government to close.

“It appears to many of us that the Democrats would like to have a government shutdown and blame it on the Republicans to bring about greater government spending,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Texas), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of nearly 100 House conservatives. “We believe that is their purpose.”

Legislation sponsored by DeMint and Hensarling would keep government open by automatically providing federal funds on the day that spending authority lapses. The bill would fund government at the same level of the previous fiscal year or at the levels set in House- and Senate-passed bills, whichever is lower.

They are backed by the White House.

“As we have in the past, the administration will continue to support Senator DeMint’s efforts to ensure government operations and services for taxpayers continue during times like we have now, when Congress fails to pass spending bills on time,” a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, Sean Kevelighan, said. “In fact, the president has included a ‘Government Shutdown Prevention’ proposal in each of his budgets.”

Though Democrats say they want to avert a government shutdown at all costs, they will fight the legislation.  

When DeMint offered the proposal as an amendment to ethics and lobbying reform in January, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) battled it on the Senate floor.

“The senator from South Carolina has argued that this amendment is needed so that Congress should not feel the pressure to finish appropriations bills on time,” Durbin said. “He is plain wrong. If there is anything we need, it is the pressure to finish on time. If we are under that pressure, it is more likely we will respond to it.”

Republicans suspect that Democrats will go so far as to allow funding for government programs to lapse in an effort to put pressure on Bush to sign spending bills increasing federal funding for healthcare, education, and labor programs.

Durbin hotly denied that Democratic leaders have such intentions.

“We’re not going to let government shut down,” he said. “I don’t want to close down the government.”
“Senator DeMint certainly has a worthy goal, one we all share,” Durbin said. “But the question is what levels of funding will be given.”

Durbin said that he and other leaders are discussing how to provide temporary funding for government programs when authority for fiscal 2007 spending expires Oct. 1.

Durbin noted that Republicans did not have a good record on passing spending bills when they controlled the House and Senate last year.

“Keep in mind before we take any lectures [from] Republicans on passing appropriations bills, I hope they remember that they fell woefully short of their goal last year, leaving us the responsibility in January of passing nine of 11 bills,” Durbin said.

Republicans, however, are trying to keep the pressure on Democrats, arguing that if they want to do everything in their power to avert a shutdown, they should support the Government Shutdown Prevention Act.

“If they want to ensure there is not a government shutdown, we’re going to have legislation to make that a reality,” Hensarling said. “We’re going to give them an opportunity to make good on their word.”

James Horney, the director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, said the proposal by DeMint and Hensarling would give an advantage to lawmakers seeking to keep spending bills low.

“The idea that we’re better off putting the government on autopilot is not a good thing,” Horney said.

“It’s not a good idea to do that because anything you set as automatic becomes the de facto starting point.”

Republicans on the Hill and the administration would have little incentive to agree to increasing the size of spending bills, as Democrats prefer, because levels would stay frozen if they failed to reach an agreement.  

Republicans say that without a guarantee against a shutdown, big spenders have an advantage. They argue that lawmakers who might otherwise oppose expensive bills are cowed into supporting them by the prospect of a shutdown.