WASHINGTON – As Congress returned to the Capitol on Tuesday from its summer break with less than a month avert a government shutdown, the biggest impediment to funding the government may be lawmakers’ lack of confidence in each other – and in their own authority to direct federal spending.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a news conference on Wednesday that Congress must reach “a real bipartisan compromise” and pass a short-term spending bill by the end of September to keep the government funded while the panel works to finalize a full-year funding package.

“If House Republicans, however, go a different route and try and jam through a partisan CR without any input from Democratic members of Congress, and they suddenly find

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