The issue: We’re limping along with temporary funding, with $1.5 trillion in recommended cuts on the horizon

Congress is congratulating itself on narrowly averting a government shutdown last weekend.

The temporary respite came when the House passed unanimously — if three lawmakers out of 435 can be considered a unanimous vote — a $2.7 billion measure to replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s depleted coffers as part of a larger bill to keep the government running.

FOR VICTIMS OF wildfires, floods and hurricanes who had hoped for more help from their government, well, tough. Somebody has to pay for our new fiscal austerity, and it’s just your bad luck that this time around it happened to be you.

Don’t worry, though. If the tea party-movement Republicans get their way, your misery will have a lot more company.

FEMA’s original request was for $3.7 billion, and that amount did pass the House with tea party support, but only because the bill would cut $1 billion from a Democratic-backed fuel-efficiency program. The Democrats predictably balked — disaster-relief aid has traditionally not been “paid for” by compensating cuts in other programs — and FEMA got $1 billion less that it said it needed.

The House vote was held early last Thursday, with three members present because of the vacation for the Jewish holidays: Reps. Andy Harris, R-Md., who presided over the nearly vacant chamber; John Culbertson, R-Texas, who offered the motion to pass the bill; and Chris van Hollen of Maryland, who provided a Democratic presence and seconded the motion.

That charade kept the government open until Tuesday, when lawmakers passed another stopgap spending bill that will keep the government open until Nov. 18. Thus, the government moves in fits and starts, mostly fits.

IT’S NOT SUPPOSED to be that way. Congress was supposed to have all its work on spending for the coming fiscal year finished by Sept. 30. Usually, the lawmakers manage to screw it up and sometimes the government isn’t fully funded until the following spring.

This year may be worse. The House Republicans responsible for the labor, health and education programs that, remember, were supposed to have been wrapped up more than a month ago instead are readying a bill that would block implementation of President Barack Obama’s health-care law, cut off funds to National Public Radio, make Pell Grants tougher for lower-income students to obtain, cut heating subsidies for the poor and gut Obama’s “Race to the Top” education program.

By Thanksgiving, a congressional supercommittee is supposed to recommend $1.5 trillion in budget cuts. If not, the government faces $1.2 trillion in automatic across-the-board cuts.

LAWMAKERS HAVE a term to describe what is going to happen to the budget process this fall: “train wreck.” Meanwhile, try to stay away from hurricanes, floods, wildfires and tornadoes. Help may not be on the way.

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