Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats released a stopgap government funding bill on Monday, Sept. 21. Unfortunately, both the White House and the Senate Republicans will have to reject this proposed bill because it does not include several provisions to extend aid for farmers and for child nutrition programs.
The stopgap funding bill the Democrats proposed, known as a continuing resolution, would extend the government’s current level of spending past the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 to Dec. 11. Both the White House and Senate Republicans object to it because it does not include $30 billion in farm aid. The bill also does not include any money for a child nutrition program, which runs out of funding at the end of the month.
Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin initially had an informal agreement to pass a bill that would leave out a lot of contentious items on the bill, such as the finer points of pandemic relief. However, the speaker of the house called the secretary on Friday to cancel the trade. Pelosi effectively ruined the hard work of bipartisan and bicameral appropriators, who were negotiating for weeks to get the two parties to come to a compromise over several sticking points on the bill.
A Democratic aide familiar with the situation said that the House is expected to vote on the measure on Tuesday. After it passes the House, it will be sent to the Senate, where the aid believes the bill may get stuck because the Republicans who control the upper house cannot come to an agreement with the Democrats.
Both the Republicans and the Democrats have publicly stated that they would like to avoid a government shutdown just weeks before the election. Pelosi stated that nobody, not even her opponents across the aisle, are interested in shutting down the government.
“We do prefer additional farm aid in the [continuing resolution],” said Larry Kudlow, chief economic adviser to President Donald Trump. “Most of all we want a clean [continuing resolution] to keep the government open.”
There is only a little over a month left before the presidential election. People need to get ready for the post-election chaos that radical left-wing domestic terrorist organizations like Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement are heavily preparing for. Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about how people can be better prepared for the upcoming collapse.
Risk of government shutdown increasing thanks to Pelosi and House Democrats
Senate Republicans from “farm states” are demanding that House Democrats include a provision in the funding bill to provide $30 billion to replenish the funds of the U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), a government-owned company whose main goal is to “stabilize, support and protect farm income and prices.”
The other crucial point of contention in the bill is the $2 billion that would have gone to replenish the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer, a food benefit program that would have given meals to children who would have received either subsidized or free food if their schools were open.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell strongly criticized Democrats in a tweet for putting the incomes of American farmers at risk.
Republican Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa is angry at the “political games” her colleagues are playing.
“I’m calling on all of my farm state colleagues in the House and the Senate – Republicans and Democrats – to stand with farmers and demand this support be included in the upcoming government funding bill,” she said in a statement.
Other elected officials from Iowa, such as Republicans Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Steve King and Democrats Reps. Dave Loebsack, Abby Finkenauer and Cindy Axne, joined Ernst in calling for bipartisanship and the inclusion of the $30 billion for farmers.
Even Trump has weighed in on the bickering in the legislature. He tweeted that he won’t let Pelosi take the $30 billion away from “our great farmers.”
Insiders in the Democratic Party are alleging that the CCC fund does not actually aid farmers, but is instead a “bottomless, unaccountable slush fund.” This baseless accusation, they argue, is part of the reason why Pelosi does not want to fund it, and instead wants to railroad the Democrats’ version of the funding bill through the House.
Now, Senate Republicans are expected to block and amend the stopgap bill, which will lead to a confrontation that can increase the risk of a shutdown occurring.
No comments:
Post a Comment