The Capitol Hill budget debates to fund the federal government and
end the partial shutdown has pushed aside other important work including
immigration reform, imposing sanction on rogue nations and
congressional investigations into the IRS scandal and the Benghazi
terror attacks.
The White House warned Friday that U.S. sanctions against Iran may
suffer because of the slimdown. White House spokesman Jay Carney said
the Treasury office that handles sanctions had to furlough nearly its
entire staff and cannot sustain such primary duties, which include new
sanctions on Iran, Syria, terrorist groups and drug cartels.
The Capitol Hill situation unfolded in the weeks ahead of the partial
shutdown -- the Republican-led House negotiating with the Democrat-run
Senate and President Obama to avoid the partial shutdown.
And the situation has only intensified since the slimdown started,
with both parties trying to strike a deal to, in part, bring back to
work roughly 800,000 federal workers and avoid further voter
dissatisfaction.
The slimdown that kicked in Oct. 1 has also resulted in Congress
delaying work on other, pressing matters because members have had to
slash their staff, which organizes hearings and helps draft legislation.
For example, New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotta has reduced
her 38-member staff to a handful of essential staffers and Wyoming
Republican Sen. Jon Barrasso has cut his in half.
Among the numerous scheduled hearing cancelled this week was one on
the Washington Navy Yard shootings before the Senate Homeland Security
and Government Committee, according to The Washington Post.
The office of West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin attempted to
highlight the situation by releasing a photo of the lawmaker answering
phone calls in his Capitol Hill office.
In Syria, the roughly two-year civil war continues, despite President
Bashar al-Assad appearing to take step toward agreeing to an
international inspection of its chemical weapons.
“The killings continue,” Peter Brookes, a Heritage Foundation fellow
and a Bush administration deputy assistant secretary of defense, told
Fox News on Thursday. “The Assad regime picked up the pace after the
chemical-weapons deal was cut. We have no Syria policy. It is a mess.”
Brookes made his comments amid reports Assad forces are on the
offensive in the same village hit by an Aug. 21 chemical-weapon attack.
The forces have surrounded about 12,000 people in the suburban
Damascus town, blocking their food supply, according to The Wall Street
Journal.
Iran officials have recently suggested a willingness to let
international inspectors look at their nuclear-enrichment program. But
observers say the crippling economic sanctions imposed by the United
States and others have brought the rogue nation to the table.
Immigration reform was supposed to be a top priority for this
Congress, potential legacy legislation for Obama that was passed in the
Senate but has stalled in the House.
Sources tell Fox News there is no movement on immigration but that
lawmakers are working on reform to the National Security Agency’s
surveillance program, exposed in recent months for collecting data on
Americans’ phone calls and Internet activities, as part of it
anti-terror efforts.
In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Wednesday on
the issue, titled “Continued Oversight of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story
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