Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
The threat of a federal government shutdown looms again this summer as House leadership moves to begin anew negotiations around the debt ceiling, reiterating that any increase must be met with corresponding spending cuts.
While an increase in the debt ceiling has historically been a non-controversial and largely procedural vote for Congress, last year’s debate of the issue was highly charged, with deep partisan divides around the nature of government spending.
The debt deal agreement reached last summer included a commitment to cut $1.2 trillion in total from both defense and domestic spending over the next decade. In May however, the House passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act effectively exempting the Defense Department from the agreed-upon cuts for fiscal 2013. The amendment was consistent with the Sequester Replacement Act, legislation passed in the House cutting approximately $380 billion from social programs like food stamps, social service grants to states, child tax credits, and federal employee pensions. Cuts made to domestic spending to preserve defense spending could negatively impact communities across the country.
While Congress has expressed bipartisan concern over the impact of the mandatory spending cuts on the Defense Department, the president has threatened to veto changes to the agreed-upon spending plan that do not include new revenues. The Senate is also unlikely to approve the House’s defense budget.
Prior to the end of the year, Congress must again contend not only with the debt ceiling issue, but also with automatic cuts to defense and domestic spending, effective on Jan. 1, that were agreed to in last year’s debt deal. Additionally, Congress is expected to revisit the end of the Bush-era tax cuts, set to expire on Dec. 31.
Each of these issues greatly complicates the negotiation and passage of the fiscal 2013 federal budget, and leaves in jeopardy funding levels for federal programs that are implemented at the state and municipal level.