The people of Utah — and of all the other states — elect members of Congress to keep the government going, not to run it off the rails.
Our senators and representatives are all members of the party that controls the presidency and both houses of Congress. If they can’t keep the federal government from grinding to a halt again this week, then we might all be better off if those office-holders would resign and give six different Utahns a chance. They couldn’t do much worse.
Nobody really likes these temporary spending bills that serve only to keep the government going at status quo levels while members of Congress take another run at actually making the decisions we send them to make.
Admittedly, some of those decisions can be really hard. Those issues include real reform of entitlements, immigration policy, health care and defense.
But none of those things has to be resolved this week. All we need is a bare majority in the House, and 60 votes in the Senate, to keep the various cogs and gears of the federal government going until, maybe, mid-February.
The fact that, as of late Wednesday, no deal had been struck to get that done is troubling indeed.
There are always bomb-throwers on the right and left that might take some pleasure in messing things up for everyone else. But level-headed Utahns generally, and their elected representatives in particular, should not be among them.
Two of the state’s most important social and economic segments — the enjoyment of public lands and pursuit of scientific research — are among those that are the most vulnerable to a cut-off of federal funding.
There have been some efforts to entice both Democrats and Republicans to vote for a temporary spending plan. One good one is to include an overdue renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which has long had bipartisan support.
Another would be — or should be — a deal to continue what the Obama administration called its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. That’s the idea that people brought to this nation illegally as children, who have grown to adulthood knowing no other home and assimilating as fully as humans can, should not be deported.
The current administration’s argument that such a policy ought to be a law, not an administrative action, has merit. So much merit, in fact, that approving it ought to be a legislative lay-up.
The fact that it hasn’t been included in a stop-gap funding deal — a carrot that would likely attract enough Democratic votes to win approval of the whole package — makes no sense.
The story is that Abraham Lincoln was so frustrated with the lack of progress made by the huge Union Army under the command of George McClellan that he was moved to remark, “If General McClellan isn’t going to use his army, I’d like to borrow it for a time.”
If the people who now represent Utah in Congress can’t use their influence to stop the government from shutting down this week, they ought to step aside and give someone else a chance.