Republicans confident in fall gridlock escape plan

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Even by the standards of today's Capitol, where doing important business at or after the last possible moment is the default setting, an exceptionally long and disparate roster of battles and deadlines lies ahead this fall.

Far from conceding they'll be strategically paralyzed by the welter of polarizing conflict, however, senior Republicans increasingly boast how the situation after Labor Day creates an ideal venue for a big accomplishment by Christmas.

This may prove to be only the naive optimism inherent in the onset of an especially long August recess. But the party that won control of Congress a year ago - with a promise to end the era of shutdown showmanship and fiscal cliff-walking - insists it has an escape hatch in the corner it's been painting itself into all year.

This summer's audacity from the Republican leadership rests on the legislative paradox that an omnibus is often easier to pass than a rifle shot. Put a few other ways: An unwieldy morass of intractable policy standoffs can become a clear success when harnessed into one take-it-or-leave-it package.

Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, vice chairman of the Republican Conference, is insisting Senate leadership will enter the fall with a plan for tackling each 'must pass” item separately. That will sound like welcome news to the Republicans' combative conservative clique, which knows its hostage-taking options decrease whenever one discreet party priority is melded into another.

But those bomb throwers - on both sides of the Hill - also will remember that Blunt, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and most others at the GOP top table are elders in the deal-making wing of the party. So they can't be all that surprised when a fatter-than-normal 'omnibus” gets trotted out as the leadership's Option One for transforming total gridlock into a burst of achievement.

This almost certainly won't happen until after Thanksgiving, in the three weeks between that holiday and Dec. 18, when the first session of the 114th Congress is scheduled to end.

By then an initial round of drama, in September, can be counted on to have left lawmakers enervated and agitated. The year's first fight over whether to keep the government operating without interruption - which Republicans are still looking to make all about federal funding for Planned Parenthood will have ended in yet another shutdown showdown.

The veto power almost guarantees President Barack Obama will prevail then, and also a few days before on his nuclear deal with Iran - even though majorities in the House and Senate are prepared to vote against his wishes.

And Pope Francis threatens to make Republicans uneasy, given his views about economic justice and environmental stewardship, and Democrats uncomfortable, given his views about abortion and same-sex marriage, when his address to Congress focuses global attention on the Capitol.

All that excitement, however, easily could be eclipsed by the confluence of unavoidable standoffs at year's end, headlined by what's now getting dubbed the triple cliff.

Starting on Oct. 1, the programs and priorities of all federal agencies will remain in limbo until Obama and the Republican leadership settle on a plan for loosening the caps on military and domestic discretionary spending.

(As a practical matter, such a deal also will be necessary to strike a final compromise on the next defense authorization bill, the Pentagon policy legislation that's been enacted without fail for 54 straight years.)

On Oct. 29, the government's authority to deliver public works payments to the states will expire - unless Congress either produces its 35th temporary patch of the past six years - the most recent, for just three months, was applied last week - or comes to agreement on how to finance several hundred billion dollars in highway, transit, railroad and auto safety programs into the next decade.

And by early November, if current estimates don't change, the Treasury will be out of accounting maneuvers and the only way to avoid default will be for Congress to raise the federal borrowing limit above $18.11 trillion.