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Speaker: This is The Takeaway with Melissa Harris-Perry from WNYC and PRX in collaboration with GBH News in Boston.

Melissa Harris-Perry: To avoid a looming government shutdown, the Senate will likely pass a stopgap measure tomorrow after advancing it last night. It would keep agencies funded through December 16th. Now, the bill introduced in the wee hours on Monday had originally included a controversial piece of legislation about energy permitting, a proposal that came from West Virginia Senator and centrist thorn in President Biden side, Joe Manchin, but Manchin pulled the provision just before yesterday's vote, and even though it's been excised from the bill, Manchin provision did accomplish something rather surprising, bipartisan agreement just weeks before an election, all of it in opposition to Manchin.

What does this clumsy budget dance mean for the upcoming midterms, and how are Republicans framing the unlikely shutdown as they campaign to take back the House? Here with some answers is Erik Wasson, who is Congressional reporter at Bloomberg News. Eric, welcome to The Takeaway.

Eric Wasson: Thanks so much for having me.

Melissa: I remember a time when government shutdowns were rare. They are less rare now, but even the threat of it, sort of moving up to it, does it have any benefit for either party strategically?

Eric: Certainly, House Republicans are taking advantage of this. They send out a notice to their members on Tuesday, saying they should all vote no to try to block this short term stopgap bill, which would provoke a shutdown. It's easy for them to say that their votes aren't necessary, Democrats will be able to carry this on their own in the House, it's a different story in the Senate where Republican votes are needed. They're messaging is that this bill will fund a border crisis, and they're also very unhappy that it goes into December. They would like to see something go into January or February.

They're pretty confident they're going to be able to take back the House at that point. They can use the new deadline to start budget cuts. Then the one that they've already signaled is they want to cut the IRS budget, they're very unhappy that there was an $80 billion boost to the tax audit budget in the summer's Inflation Reduction Act, and they want to be able to reverse that. They say that Democrat promises that the tax audits will only target billionaires, are not enforced by law, and that the middle class will see increased tax audit. They want to cut the IRS budget.

Melissa: I live in North Carolina and there's a pretty heated Senate race going on here. This question of IRS tax agents represented almost as SWAT teams is really central to this advertising battle right now between Cheri Beasley and Ted Budd, so I see that actually playing out and yet doesn't shutting down the government or even threatening it, there was a time when both parties saw that as the kind of option that simply reduced public trust overall in the institution of Congress. Is that time over?

Eric: I think it's a different story in the House than the Senate. The Senate where you have Republicans who are elected on statewide basis, they're more wary of doing that, but in the House, which has been so gerrymandered, you have these more ideologically cohesive districts where you have more extreme members. It certainly does play to the base, the idea that you're going to use every tool on your toolbox to do something like build the wall on the southern border, which is another goal that we're going to see resurface and which was the issue that caused the 35-day government shutdown during the Trump administration.

We're not going to see a shutdown this week, but the positioning that was coming from the House Republicans forecast that we may see one in December when this new bills deadline comes up, and certainly next year when the House tries to use as much leverage as they can over a Democratic president.

Melissa: Averting it this week puts it right on the agenda for just before the Christmas holidays, which I get Republican's point on this one, that seems like bad timing. It's post-election so you've got a lame duck Congress that would be making those choices, and it creates some real pressures around not wanting to have a government shutdown at the holidays.

Eric: That's right. Another thing we're going to be looking very closely is that the top Republican and the Senate Appropriations Committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, he's retiring. He very much wants to put his imprint on one last bill before hitting the exits in January. Mitch McConnell, plays an interesting game where he talks about cutting entitlements, but he's always gone along with these larger discretionary programs, especially on the defense side.

I think that there's some motivation behind the scenes for these Senate Republicans to get a full year bill done in December, they'll be under a lot of pressure, especially if the election goes Republican way to delay, but there's been a return of earmarking under Democrats, and these Republicans do have earmarks in these bills, especially a designated projects in their communities, and that's something that's likely to go away under Republican Congress as well. This could be a last chance for them. There's definitely going to be some motivation to try to finish the 12 annual appropriation bills in December, which is very much what the Biden administration wants to see done, they don't want to see chaos or a shutdown in 2023.

Melissa: Listen, outside of observers typically hate earmarks, think of them as big projects, but at least for much of American history, they also got things done. They allowed the log rolling, they allowed some bargaining. Where are you on earmarks?

Eric: I'm not really supposed to say my opinion, but I will note that there is a more transparent process in place now. In the past, we saw what was called air dropped into a bill released in the middle of the night, very hard for us reporters or anyone to really track it before the vote happened. There is a process now where they are online, where the requests are published, so it is much more transparent in the old days, and at least there was run round last year of earmarking, we didn't see the boondoggle we saw previously with the bridge to nowhere or some completely useless project that just exists in order to have a congressman's name on it.

So far I think at least some experts are saying the process is better, but then again it's not really an expert or administration official making this decision. It's a Congressperson and whether they know their district better, that may be the case, but they also have a motivation to see their name slapped on a building.

Melissa: Let's go back to 2019 and the shutdown that caused the US billions in terms of the economy, this potential shutdown, and I guess at this point, it's pretty unlikely right now, but I'm thinking even what could reoccur come December? Are there different structures facing the decision makers here relative to what happened in 2019?

Eric: I think before the election, they don't want to see that chaos. Generally, the ones who are advocating a shutdown like Republicans do face at least a short-term dip in the polls, and they really are feeling that they're confident they're going to take, police the House back, so they don't want to see that erupt. We did see in the past that the polling related to a shutdown evaporated after a certain period of time. Once the public with it's short-term memory moves on from that, there hasn't been a major permanent stain on the party that does do a shutdown. There's still that motivation to try to score those points.

The other one that we're really looking at Bloomberg, especially is the debt ceiling. That's going to have to be addressed in 2023 and that's also been used or taken hostage by Republicans in the past. It caused a downgrade in the US credit rating in 2011, and there's already a talk of republicans trying to leverage that for further budget cuts or other policy priorities. Whatever happens with a shutdown is also-- if that's a conventional weapon the debt cealing is a nuclear weapon and they could be used as well.

Melissa: Eric Wasson, congressional reporter for Bloomberg News. Promise you'll come back in December if this turns into a big old mess again then.

Eric: Thanks so much for having me.

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