President Obama was forced to sign a two-week highway funding bill into law today because that is the best Congress can manage right now.
Congressional Republicans insist they just need a little more time to hash out a long-term deal, but they've been saying that for as long as I can remember.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) says the conference committee just "needs the time necessary to meet in public" and "complete negotiations," but if you've been following along you're probably aware that Congress has been stuck on this stage of the game since at least last Spring.
The temporary highway bill does not include any new money. Lawmakers included enough road funding in the three-month transportation bill that was approved in July to last until the end of the [fiscal] year, in case more time was needed to finish work on a multiyear fix.
The earlier patch was extended in October until Friday. But lawmakers were running out of time to reach a bicameral agreement before the scheduled interruption in road and transit spending, so another temporary extension was rolled out.
Recent events have made the situation more complicated as dickheads like Senator Rand Paul have called for using the infrastructure funding bill to defund housing assistance for refugees.
It's possible both chambers of Congress will resolve their differences and pass a long-term bill at some point in time, but this, among other reasons, is why I don't expect they will before they recess for the holidays.
Republicans control both chambers of Congress and this disagreement is more or less a disagreement between different factions of Republicans. If not for congressional Democrats who will cast the deciding votes on a long-term bill, there would be virtually no chance that the GOP could pass a bill on their own. Some members of the Republican caucus aren't convinced that we should fund the federal highway system at all.