WASHINGTON – Having only completed work on 2 of the 11 annual appropriations bills, Congressional Republicans have apparently decided to give up and go home, leaving 9 bills covering roughly $460 billion for next year.

Dave Obey, Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement.

“It now appears that the Republican Congressional majority intends to walk away from its responsibility to finalize work on a single domestic appropriations bill for the coming year. Their failure to finish those bills has nothing whatsoever to do with differences between Democrats and Republicans over their content. Rather, the failure is rooted in the inability of House Republicans to convince their Senate counterparts before the election that those bills represented something that they could defend on the campaign trail.”

“Now that the campaign is behind us, it appears that they are walking away from their responsibility to pass all of the remaining domestic appropriations bills. The last time I looked, Republicans were not elected for 1 ¾ years. They were elected for full 2 year terms, a term that does not expire until January 1 of next year.”

“I again urge the Republican Congressional Majority to finish their appropriations work. If they choose to walk away from that responsibility by punting all of those bills into the next Congressional session, one of two things will happen. Either the Congress will be consumed for months trying to pass those remaining bills – thus muddying the waters for consideration of the President’s new budget – or it will be forced to pass some long-term continuing funding resolution. Either of those scenarios would represent lousy outcomes, but they would have been made unavoidable by Republican inaction today.”

“If the Republican majority walks away from their existing obligation to finish their work, they will forfeit any right to complain about any action that we are forced to take on appropriations bills next year to clean up their chaotic mess. And they will forfeit any right to go to the public two years from now asking to once again be put in charge of carrying out the duties that they appear determined to walk away from now.”

“The new Congress needs to be able to start with a clean slate. And the President needs to be able to do the same thing with the presentation of his new budget. Republican inaction prevents that. The reckless and irresponsible inaction of the Republican Congressional majority does a disservice to the Congress, the President, and the country.”