Congress keeps going like a broken record on spending, border, shutdown fights

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record.

But many political observers concede that Congress is broken. And it’s angling for a record in futility.

For nearly eight months, Congress has been stuck. Contemporary audiophiles using Spotify or Pandora can’t appreciate the frustration of buying "Led Zeppelin IV" at Camelot Music in the ‘80s, racing home, positioning the disc on the turntable – only to hear it skip.

I mean it’s one thing to tolerate the needle repeating on "Four Sticks" by Led Zeppelin. But on "Stairway to Heaven" or "When the Levee Breaks"?

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson listens during a news conference following the Republican conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 17, 2024. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

The needle would simply jump on the vinyl to the outer groove. And the same riff, vocal, lyric or cymbal clash would repeat on an endless loop. If you were lucky, the needle might slide into the next sonic cavity after a few revolutions. The tune would get its groove back and the music continued, unabated.

But often, the needle dipped into that crevasse and never resurfaced, repeating the same bars of music.

Such is the case on Capitol Hill. Since last spring, the song remains the same.

Congress is stuck in a seemingly inescapable political trench. Lawmakers play the same chorus. The same guitar solo. The same refrain. Again and again.

However, there was one respite: The 22-day crisis over the House speakership in October.

But like that broken record, Congress skipped through arguments about keeping the government open, border security and assistance to Ukraine since last May.

Members talk on the floor of the House Chamber. (Jabin Botsford6/Getty Images)

That’s back when Congress approved a bill to lift the debt ceiling. Otherwise, Congress is on repeat. 

The unremitting cycle on Capitol Hill is tedious. It attests to just how bogged down the 118th Congress is.

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The warning signs came on the first day of Congress last year. The House voted ad nauseum to elect a speaker. It finally settled on Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. But the House ultimately decided to scratch McCarthy.

It’s been on reverb ever since.

Congress has now approved three stopgap spending bills since late September to avert potential government shutdowns. Then there was another Band-Aid in early November. Then an additional temporary bill last week. The next sets of deadlines are March 1 and March 8. Congress may be able to pass a few of the 12 annual spending bills by early March. But all 12 appropriations bills? The sides are still trying to settle the allocations for each sector of federal spending.

Nothing can move until congressional appropriators agree on how much they want to spend in each area. Otherwise, they just know the size of the overall spending pie, not the individual pieces.

Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker in 2023. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

Republicans may hold the majority in the House. But it’s Democrats who are are really in charge of passing legislation. Sure, Republicans can pass various "messaging" bills on their own about abortion and Biden administration policies they oppose. But the House only advances substantive legislation when nearly all Democrats are on board and various percentages of Republicans. That’s been true on the debt ceiling and government funding. Congress never deviated from that cycle.

Then there is the push for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Bipartisan advocates for Ukraine really amped up their demand to assist with the war effort as winter loomed in Kyiv. Money was certainly destined for Taiwan. Then Oct. 7 happened. A push emerged to help Israel reload with weapons in its fight against Hamas. The border devolved deeper into a crisis. Border security discussions intensified in the fall. Some Republicans said they were willing to entertain the international assistance package requested by President Biden – especially money for Ukraine. But only if they marshaled a border security pact which they liked.

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Talks between Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and James Lankford, R-Okla., escalated. There was even talk the Senate might try to vote on a border/immigration bill in mid-December. But negotiations lagged through the holidays. Picked up again. And the Senate still hasn’t produced an agreement.

Talks between Sens. Chris Murphy, Kyrsten Sinema and James Lankford escalated. (Rod Lamkey-Pool/Getty Images)

The legislative algorithm never deviates. This isn’t even the pithy idiom of "wash, rinse, repeat." On Capitol Hill, lawmakers never made it to the shower stall. Any progress Congress would make on any of these subjects – even if it’s incremental – would be head and shoulders above what lawmakers achieved over the past eight months.

And so the congressional coda continues. Stuck in a parliamentary tape loop. It’s the opposite of The Beatles avant-garde "Revolution 9." That’s where the band assembled a noisy overdub of music and speech. The voice of a studio engineer fades up and repeats the phrase "Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine" at regular intervals. Play that section backwards and some believe the voice says "turn me on, dead man." That only intensified rumors that Paul McCartney unexpectedly died.

If there’s not a border deal soon, you might hear someone saying "the border bill is dead. The border bill is dead." It won’t matter whether you play it backwards or forwards. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other conservatives have already said as much for weeks – even though there’s no bill text to dismiss. In fact, criticism of the Senate negotiations by House conservatives of the border talks is also looped.

Maybe they never get a border agreement. Maybe they never get an accord on spending. Maybe Speaker Johnson punts yet again and does a fourth (!) temporary spending package to keep the government from closing in March.

Migrants take part in a caravan toward the border with the United States in Tapachula, Mexico, on Dec. 24, 2023. (STR/AFP)

The skip in the congressional record could be beyond repair.

Back with your turntable, you might find a speck of debris on the record, causing it to jump. You could fix this by simply cleaning the record with a microfiber cloth or even rubbing alcohol.

But other times, the record was just junk.

So, you’d take the damaged album back to the store. Maybe exchange it for something from Rush, Yes or The Who.

You’d hope that those records weren’t damaged, as well.

But after a while, people didn’t rely on vinyl records. Cassette tapes became the rage in the mid-80s. Compact discs soon leapfrogged cassettes. Most audio is now digital. Skips are a thing of the past.

Sunlight shines on the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

However, you can’t take Congress back to the record store. It will forever be analog, Not digital.

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Detractors often argue that Congress is broken.

And that criticism has sounded like a broken record for years now.