America's Talking - 'Shameful:' GOP leaders frustrated with Dems on tenth day of shutdown

Episode Date: October 11, 2025

(The Center Square) – U.S. senators have left town for the weekend and will not vote again on a federal funding bill until Tuesday, meaning the ongoing government shutdown will stretch into its third week. Meanwhile, today marks the last time that over 700,000 civilian federal workers will receive a partial paycheck, leaving federal employees either furloughed or working without pay until the government reopens. About 1.3 million active-duty service members, who normally would receive their pay Monday, will be left out in the cold unless Congress passes a bill to prevent that.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxRead more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_ef97f9f9-46ae-46e0-879e-2614e29c7462.html 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's Talking, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. The federal government remains shuts down, 10 days into the new fiscal year, causing issues at airports, the IRS and elsewhere. Joining me to discuss this is the Center Square's congressional reporter, Teres Boudreau. Torres is Congress getting any closer to striking a deal? No, really, is the short answer. They're not.

At least the leaders are not. there are some rank and file members, I think, who are trying to, you know, do some kind of deal, you know, legislation makes something behind, you know, behind the scenes. But otherwise, when it comes to the Senate and House minority and majority leaders, there's nothing. I mean, we're this, it's the 10th day. So we're going, we're going to be going into the third week next week. And there's no change. Republicans are still saying that they're not going to negotiate on any health care deal or anything like that until the government reopens. They have their seven-week continuing resolution, the CR, that would extend government funding temporarily so that they can, law marriage, can finish the regular appropriations process. But Democrats, they say the clean CR isn't enough. They say that health care policy, specifically the enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits from the COVID-19 era, those are expiring. And they say that those need to be taken care of now. They need to be extended now, which would be very costly. And a lot of Republicans are saying that they want to see reforms before they do that, which is another reason why House Speaker Mike Johnson is saying, we won't negotiate with you guys until you vote to open the

government to keep it temporarily funded, then we can do all of the stuff that requires a lot of discussion, a lot of debate. It's not a simple issue. So those are the, that's where those are two sides. And where we're at right now is that neither side seems to have any intent to concede to the others. Just that's their positions and they're just waiting each other out at this point is where we're at. And we're recording this on Friday, October 10th. There's no vote scheduled. today. So it looks like the government will remain shut down through the weekend. But it is having some impacts. Many Americans might not notice it directly, but there's air traffic controllers who aren't getting paid during the shutdown. We'll get back pay, but there's been

some who have, whether it's called out sick out or whatever, it's impacting airports, It's impacting what the IRS can do. Tell us a little about the impacts of the shutdown. Yeah, so you're right that I think the average American, as of right now, has probably not noticed much because they're still getting their mail. They're still getting their Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Benefits. There's, so a lot of people probably haven't really noticed honestly. I've talked to people who say, oh, we're in a government shutdown.

They didn't even hear. But there are some real life consequences that we're seeing now and that the longer this drags on, the more we're going to see them. And the harder it's going to get from our people. So like you said, one of those things is workers deemed essential, that federal government deems essential, such as Border Patrol, law enforcement, air traffic controllers. They're still working. There's hundreds of thousands of federal employees furloughed right now, but the essential ones are still working. and they're working without pay. So the military, for military members, for instance,

they were supposed to get, they're supposed to get their paycheck on October 15th. And the way things are right now, nobody is expecting them to get that. Because if the government opened by October 15th, I mean, that would indicate some serious, quick negotiations going on. And we're not anywhere near that point at this point.

So, Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffington. Duffy was saying, he was talking with air traffic controllers. And as you said, there's a lot that are calling out sick. There's a lot that are, you know, trying to get jobs on the side because they're not getting paid right now. And they don't know when they're going to get paid. Again, they'll receive back pay. But that doesn't, you can't tell your landlord, you know, oh, I'll pay you, I'll pay you next month.

Maybe I'm not sure, you know, or your mortgage payments or things like that. And so that's giving them a lot of distress. There's been reported delays in a lot of airports. So that's impacting non-federal workers, just, you know, your so-called like ordinary American as well. So that's one, that's, that's something that seems to be escalating a bit. Now, Duffy says that he says, it's not unsafe to travel by air right now and that they would, they would shut things down if they thought it was going to get to the point where it was,

where, you know, there's no aircraft controllers who are, you know, in a good place are able to do things. He says, it's safe to travel. It's just that these things build up, right, over time. So another thing that it's going to get more, that the average American will probably notice a bit more if the shutdown drags on is tax services. So the IRS had some funding to tide it over from the a 2022 infrastructure law had some funding to tide it over for when this government shutdown first started. But that funding is run out now. So there's half its workforce has been furloughed and a lot of services that it does.

And especially things like customer service. So if you have a question, you're calling and they don't have anyone on the phones right now. There's a lot of these, you know, non-essential services just aren't happening. There's going to be a lot of backlog after this as well. is a thing. It's not like, oh, once it reopens, everything's back to normal. I mean, I don't think most people view the IRS as the most efficient government agency anyway, but that's another thing, is that when the government reopens, there's going to be, you know, after effects, right, of that. So, you know, there's also, for instance, there's a lot of scientists who are concerned that

there's a lot of National Institute of Health. There's some clinical trials that go on, all the time, and during a shutdown, you have to pause that kind of stuff. But if you pause that kind of stuff, then you kind of ruin the whole clinical trial a lot of times because you can't, there's all of this timing, things like that. So there's, it's interesting at this point because at this point where we're at, the daily lives of Americans who aren't federal workers are probably not being impacted that much, you know, unless, again, they happen to be, you know, maybe they're looking for a federal home loan or they have some kind of special tax thing they're doing. But as this goes on and as funding, for instance, for WIC or SNAP benefits, starts to decrease.

That's, I think, when it's going, the more immediate effects of a shutdown are going to become more apparent. And then the long-term ones are also going to the worse, essentially. So it is, it's, it's very, it is important that Congress doesn't just let the strike on forever. But again, where we're at right now, it doesn't seem like either side is showing any signs of folding. Thank you for joining us today, Torres. Listeners can keep up to this ongoing story about the as partial federal government shutdown at the center square.com.