Congress headed out of town this week with no action on guns

The U.S. Congress is headed for a seven-week recess without addressing gun violence, the Zika virus outbreak and other pressing issues, amid persistent election-year bickering.

Republicans and Democrats were also at odds over spending bills to keep the government functioning beyond September 30, when current fiscal year funding expires. Democrats also want to strike provisions that take some money from Obamacare to pay for Zika costs and others that target Planned Parenthood.

President Barack Obama made a $1.9 billion emergency request in February, but Congress has moved slowly in response.

Any chance Congress had this year of smoothly completing work on its annual spending bills is now all but dead, leaving Republican leaders to grapple with how to avoid a contentious fight in the weeks before the election over how to avoid the threat of a government shutdown.

Partisan tensions over guns have been high since a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, last month. But the National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress so far have staved off legislation. He noted that Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee had recently joined Republicans in unanimously approving the defense measure. Some Republicans have talked about a gun bill possibly moving through Congress in the fall, in the midst of the campaign season, but Democrats were skeptical.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) expressed frustration with the Republican-led House’s inability to get anything done.

“The reason for that is the Republicans refuse to allocate money for this legislation”, he said from the Senate floor. Ryan’s office says he has never discussed the topic with anyone.

Democrats argued that Republican leaders were not honoring a bipartisan budget deal struck late previous year by including policy provisions they oppose in the bills and by not promising that domestic programs would receive as big a funding increase as the military.

McConnell made clear Tuesday that he wasn’t going to entertain alternatives being floated by Democrats to fund the USA government’s response to Zika, which causes birth defects such as microcephaly and other irreversible problems.

Meanwhile, Republicans said that because the administration has been slow to disburse nearly $600 million in already available anti-Zika funds, the failure of Congress to act before recessing until after Labor Day won’t have major impacts.

The Democrats wrote that they would block Senate work on upcoming spending bills “without strong, public assurance that you are committed to honoring the core tenets” of the budget agreement, “including fair funding, parity and a rejection of poison pill” language.

Republicans have also pushed for new federal probes of Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on her use of private emails while secretary of state.

Ryan meanwhile showcased his “A Better Way” agenda, flashing a glossy pamphlet at a press conference listing proposals created to lure votes in November but do nothing this year legislatively.