Gov’t Shutdown Imminent Because GOP Refuses to Back Down on Far Right Policies
The government shutdown is coming, and it’s not because of fiscal disagreements. Both parties now agree on the size of spending cuts.
The shutdown is imminent because of the GOP’s determination to ram through the far right policy riders they’ve attached to the budget; these riders are more important to them than keeping the government operating.
When the government stops, it will be because the GOP refused to compromise on defunding Planned Parenthood, defunding NPR, and destroying the Clean Air Act.
Mr. Reid said he believed that negotiators were very close to agreement on an amount of money to cut from spending. But he said Republicans were insisting on language that would restrict financing of abortion providers like Planned Parenthood and separate language to change the Clean Air Act.
“These matters have no place on a budget bill,” Mr. Reid said. Regarding the dispute over abortion funding, Mr. Reid said that lawmakers “can’t solve in one night an issue that this country has been fighting over for four decades.”
Planned Parenthood, one of the organizations that could lose federal financing if Republicans get their way, planned a large rally on Capitol Hill for Thursday.
You can see this mindset all over the country, where newly elected Republican administrations are pushing social conservative legislation instead of dealing with budget issues.