It would appear that the United States government is mere days away from a shut down − a situation that will affect the livelihoods of more than 100,000 workers.
What happens now?
Millions of Americans will be impacted if lawmakers can’t reach a deal before 12:01 a.m. Oct. 1st, and it appears as though Congress has still failed to reach a deal that would continue to fund the federal government.
Food assistance programs, the military, the FAA, Medicare and Medicaid, federal college grants, national parks, and food and water safety inspections are just a few of the things that will fall to the wayside if a shutdown is allowed to happen.
Why is this happening?
Republican demands for spending cuts in the House have led to the current gridlock. During debt ceiling negotiations, House Republicans came to an agreement with the White House to establish spending caps for the next two years. However, in seeking to cater to his far-right party members, Speaker McCarthy let said party members alter the spending bills to fall below the caps that had been previously agreed on with the Biden administration.
As of right now, the House has only passed one of the 12 funding bills on the floor, while the Senate has failed to pass any. Multiple times in the past week, a small group of conservatives blocked the GOP leaders from bringing the Defense Department appropriations bill to the floor for debate, demanding additional funding cuts before they would allow it to be passed – an unpopular move in the party that typically passes this funding with ease.
When asked about challenges coming from his own party, McCarthy had this to say: “I’ve got members who have held us up since the summer not to be able to bring our appropriation bills up. Otherwise, we probably have them all done,” he said. “I’ve got members who will not vote to have a stopgap measure to continue to fund government. I got members who say they’ll never vote for it.”
However, he claims to still have hope that a compromise will be reached and a shut down avoided, saying, “At the end of the day, we will get this done.”