America's Talking - Congress Faces Looming Government Shutdown

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Lawmakers are scrambling to avoid a partial government shutdown this week. Funding for the federal government runs out at the end of September, Saturday at midnight, and lawmakers are still far from getting agreement on a deal that President Joe Biden can sign into law. In the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has been unable to persuade enough conservative Republicans to back his push for a Continuing Resolution, a temporary funding measure to buy time. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper. How are you, Casey? Doing good, Dan. How are you? I am doing well, Casey, although it has been a long week. It's been quite the week at the nation's capital in particular, where a potential government shutdown looms this weekend. This is happening as Republicans in the U.S. House launched their impeachment inquiry in the to President Joe Biden and his connections to his son, Hunters Overseas Business Dealings, and his Republican presidential candidates held their second debate with the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, again sitting it out.

Casey, we're going to talk about all of these things on America and focus, but in three separate episodes. This episode will focus on what a government shutdown could mean, but if listeners want to hear you and me discuss the impeach man inquiry in the Republican debate, just a reminder you can download and listen to all of these episodes at americastalking.com or any of your favorite podcast sites. Casey, we're recording this on the morning of Friday, September 29th, just hours before federal government agencies run out of approved funding from Congress to keep operating. We're going to rush this segment out to our audience because this developing story could

change at almost any moment. But as of right now, a little after 9 a.m. on Friday, September 29th, There is no deal in place to keep the federal government operating. Casey, tell us what that means and what you're hearing. Yeah, I'm hearing chaos is the number one word, especially among Republicans. I'm hearing, you know, talking to federal employees. I know a lot of federal employees. I think their attitude is, here we go again. You know, and actually, some federal employees, they don't mind the shutdowns because it's

basically a free vacation for them because they will get back pay. Essential workers, essential employees will have to keep working and then get back pay. They'll work without a paycheck, but then once the government, you know, once they kind of get their act together and pass something, they will get back pay. But a lot of these federal employees, they're not going to have to really come into work for however long it takes. And in the past, it's, you know, taken quite a while. And then they're going to get, they'll get paid retroactively anyway. So it's kind of a free, a free vacation for a lot of these, for a lot of his work or something. I know you're really familiar with then. I was going to say, Casey, you're pretty

much an expert on free vacation. No, you can't take. I beat you to it, Dan. I still beat you so that's, you know, that's the federal employee side. I mean, for some of them, though, it can be, you know, anyone living paycheck to paycheck, you know, there is kind of a meme about federal bureaucrats and I get that, but not all federal employees by any stretch are living large. Some of them are living paycheck to paycheck. And if they are, they are going to be in for some trouble potentially, because if this goes a few weeks, even over a month, I mean, you know, Research shows that most Americans, the majority of Americans do live paycheck to paycheck. And so people are going to be living off credit cards.

They're going to be dipping into savings. They're going to have to, if they have savings, have to figure something out. So that's the federal employee side. You know, I wrote a story at the CenterSquare.com. The point of the story is I just wanted to point out that this is not just a Washington, D.C. problem. This is not just affecting the swamp creatures like me and, you know, my buddies, I guess. Oh, you got that right.

Yeah. This is a, there are actually, you know, millions. of people around the country. There's over a thousand federal civilian workers in every congressional district, right? That's not counting federal contractors. That's not counting U.S. service members, right? Members of the military. So there's over two million American civilians who work for the federal government across all 50 states and U.S. territories. And that's not just in D.C. So people around the country are going to be in their paychecks cut. And the hangup seems to be in the U.S. House, excuse me, where Republicans have the slimmest of majorities, and it is Republicans

that have, not all, but some Republicans that have been holding up potential compromises. I mean, what's your gut tell you? I know we don't know until something actually happens, but what's your gut tell you? Is there going to be a deal, whether it be today, Friday, or is this going to linger into next week? I know you don't know for sure. anything can happen. Don't doubt median, actually.

No, you're right. Who can know, really? But I think we are going to shut down the government personally. The House is in chaos. McCarthy has, there's multiple levels to it. Speaker McCarthy. Yeah, Speaker McCarthy. So, you know, they're supposed to pass these, shut these 12, there's 12 appropriations

bills that have to be passed to appropriately fund the government. So all the spinning across the whole government is broken into 12 gigantic bills. and they're supposed to pass those individually and then, you know, kind of get deals on those and then pass them through. But then they usually are unable to do that because the bills are so large and there's so much division. So they pass these CRs, continuing resolutions, which basically usually just kind of keep the status quo, maybe with some slight changes for another three months, maybe another year. That's what they usually do. And that's why people are frustrated. And then that new deadline comes, right?

So that new deadline has come in this case. and a lot of people are really mad within the Republican conference that they haven't already passed or tried to pass those 12 appropriations bills. That's something a lot of Republicans really want. They want to go back to more kind of the old way that what a lot of people say the right way that Congress is supposed to pass budgets, right? But here it was like the week of the shutdown and they still hadn't done it. And so I think, I don't know if it's procrastination or what, but they did not get these bills passed. So now they're late into the night trying to pass these 12, these appropriations. Bill is in the House, but the Senate is not going to agree to him. And the Republicans couldn't

even pass their own. So like the agriculture bill that failed last night because the Republicans voted against it. And so, I mean, there's just total chaos. And then in the Senate, you know, people like Rand Paul have, you know, like Rand Paul has said he's not going to, he's going to delay and not support anything that includes a lot of this Ukraine funding, for instance. So between Republicans being upset at McCarthy and wanting a more not to do a CR, that is an account for the Ukraine funding, which a lot of Republicans are just not going to support anymore. And it's become a big sticking point. All that wrapped in one tells me that it's going to be into next week. Okay. We're almost out of time, Casey. But one final thought, one of the big sticking points here for Republicans is earlier this month, the U.S. national debt exceeded $33 trillion. under President Biden, not just President Biden, former President Donald Trump and most recent presidents,

the budget deficits have soared, but President Biden has introduced and got passed. These huge spending bills, which is the increased spending has led to the 40-year high inflation that are causing Americans, essentially their paychecks to shrink because of the much higher costs of everything. And the Republicans that are holding this up want to rein in spending. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, is right. The deficits have absolutely ballooned. I mean, they're even, you know, before COVID, the deficits were less than a trillion.

And now they're well over a trillion. The federal debt surpassed $33 trillion. And so, I mean, even this most recent deficit is about 50% higher than the year before. And you can't really blame that on COVID-era spending, which is what they've been doing. And they said, well, that was COVID. You know, we had to do things. then how is this year's deficit higher than the last by a substantial margin? So the deficits are actually growing.

The debt is growing extremely fast. Several federal programs are set to be insolvent within a few years. And soon enough, it's projected that the interest payments on the national debt will be the most, the biggest expense, even more than national defense or social security for the federal government. Thank you, Casey. As we said up front, this is a developing story. it could change at any moment. Listeners can keep up with it,

with the developments at the CentersWhorter.com. But we are out of time for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McAidlop. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.