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Members of Congress have skedaddled for the month of August, leaving behind a long list of unfinished business.

Technically speaking, the House of Representatives has not adjourned – a small group of Republican lawmakers banded with Democrats to prevent the House from taking a formal recess. Republicans did that so as to be sure to prevent President Obama from making any recess appointments during the next five weeks, and Democrats say Congress shouldn’t go home for its annual summer break with so many issues unresolved.

What did Congress leave in the lurch? Here are five of the top pressing issues.

5. Postal reform

On Aug. 1, the US Postal Service went into default for the first time in its history, failing to make a $5.5 billion payment to its employee pension fund. That doesn’t hurt the post office’s immediate ability to function, but it speaks to an urgent truth: Congress needs to fix the mail.

Congress, however, is deadlocked on postal reform. The Senate approved a reform bill back in April that would cut costs and begin phasing in structural reforms to the USPS.

A much harsher House bill fashioned by House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R) of California hasn’t been brought to the House floor because it’s unclear if it can pass over objections from Democrats and some Republican lawmakers from rural areas, many of whom could see some of the post offices shuttered in their districts. (In the Senate, several Democrats from rural states opposed even that chamber’s more modest reductions in postal service operations.)

Will Congress deliver for the postal service? There’s no indication that the House is interested in handling the matter when it returns from recess.

4. Violence Against Women Act

VAWA, as it’s known in Washington, expired in 2011, and the House and Senate have each approved legislation reauthorizing funding for a variety of programs from victim services to protections for immigrants and native Americans.

The bill, which drew little political sniping the three previous times it was approved, became an opportunity for Senate Democrats to paint Republicans as waging a “war on women,” after Republicans objected to language relating to protections for native Americans, gay Americans, and illegal immigrants.

The Senate passed its bill in April, garnering the support of all five female Republican senators. The House then passed its own measure, leaving out the Senate’s most controversial provisions. Then, Republicans used a procedural glitch – the Senate bill contained tax provisions, but such provisions must originate in the House – to stymie further talks until just before recess.

3. Cybersecurity

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Everyone agrees such legislation needs to be passed, but nobody can agree what exactly should be in it.

The issue is how best to make the nation's critical infrastructure – such as water facilities and the electric power grid – secure from cyberattack. The rub is that many such systems are privately owned, meaning anything Congress does could be construed as onerous new regulation.

A package of cybersecurity measures passed the House in April, with bipartisan support. However, consensus in the Senate has been much harder to achieve. Leaders of both parties and the Senate’s lead cybersecurity legislator, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I) of Connecticut, worked furiously to reach a compromise on rules that would strike a balance between government imposition of private-sector cybersecurity standards and ensuring that the nation is protected from cyberthreats – right up until leaving town Aug. 2.

But chances for passage were scuttled by opposition from the US Chamber of Commerce and concern by GOP lawmakers that the compromise legislation is still too heavy-handed. Republicans say the bill came up too close to the August recess; with more time, they say, they’ll be able to get to a deal.

Senator Lieberman is not so hopeful, noting that the bill (which has several Republican cosponsors) has already been repeatedly altered to win GOP support.

2. Farm bill and drought relief

Farm and nutrition assistance programs run out on Sept. 30, but disaster provisions from the previous farm bill expired last year. That’s a big problem for farmers who are trying to plan for years ahead as well as deal with this year’s withering drought.

The Senate slogged through dozens of amendments to approve a five-year farm bill with reforms to central farm-support programs and cuts to nutrition programs – and renewed disaster assistance. That bill, agreed to in July, achieved significant bipartisan support.

In the House, the agriculture committee approved legislation with steeper cuts, and it, too, won bipartisan support. But House leaders didn’t bring the bill to the floor, fearing a fight among conservatives – just as lawmakers were heading home to face their constituents – over the severity of spending cuts or perceived favoritism of some industries over others.

GOP divisions in the House were so deep that there weren't enough Republicans to support even a one-year extension of the farm bill attached to funding for disaster relief. Instead, the House approved by a narrow margin a measure authorizing disaster funds, just before the break. Several dozen Democrats provided the votes to put the measure over the top.

The Senate, though, declined to take that route, leaving the issue hanging.

What’s next? The Senate’s top Democrat on agriculture, Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, says lawmakers would work informally over the August recess to try to move the bill before the end of September. House majority whip Kevin McCarthy (R) of California likewise said July 30, at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast for reporters, that he had similar hopes for the bill.

But will be a heavy lift, given the House’s deep divisions and the fact that there are only six full legislative days in September.

1. Taxes and the 'fiscal cliff'

The House and Senate have each approved a bill to deal with the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts at year’s end. The GOP-controlled House passed a measure to keep all the current tax rates for another year, while the Democratic-led Senate approved a bill that would continue the tax breaks for households with income up to $250,000.

Brandishing its favored bill, each party has tried to claim the moral high ground concerning leaving this task undone for at least another month. Democrats say Congress shouldn’t take a break until Republicans agree with them. House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio said in a letter to Senate leadership that when Democrats see the light and want to extend the Bush-era tax rates to everyone, he’ll be happy to call Congress back into session.

Where does that leave Congress in relation to the $560 billion in lower government spending and higher taxes set to hit the US economy come Jan. 1? No closer to solving it. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2012/0803/Congress-goes-on-sum
mer-break-Top-5-things-it-left-undone/Postal-reform

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