Another Government Shutdown September 30th?

September 21st, 2015

Awake Goy

Much of America’s political focus has understandably been on the 2016
presidential race. There is, however, a more immediate problem on the
horizon. Congress has two weeks to pass a measure to keep the government
funded beyond Sept. 30. If no agreement is reached, federal agencies
could be shuttered again — the second time in three years. ~ Ryan

The Washington Post reports
there are six issues congressional Republicans and Democrats could fail
to agree on. The top item of contention seems to be Republicans’ push
to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood.

“Suddenly, abortion is back in the political debate in a big way.

A
group of Republicans want to pass a budget without funding for Planned
Parenthood, but that’s a major non-starter for Democrats, who have
promised to hold up budget proceedings in the Senate until Planned
Parenthood gets funded.

~~President~~ Obama has also said he’ll veto any
budget that doesn’t have money for Planned Parenthood.”

Other issues include military and road spending, the Iran nuclear deal and the Export-Import Bank.

To be clear, no leaders in either party are itching for a shutdown.

The last one came when Democrats still controlled the Senate. But
Americans mostly placed blame on congressional Republicans for the 2013 shutdown, which centered on GOP-led efforts to defund President Obama’s health care law.

Now that Republicans control both chambers, the Financial Times reports
rank-and-file conservatives are complicating party leaders’ efforts to
avert a shutdown by drawing a red line on the Planned Parenthood funding
issue.

“Republican leaders, who have a fraught relationship with rightwing
lawmakers, are concerned about being blamed for a shutdown, particularly
after the party vowed to use its biggest majority in the House of
Representatives since the 1920s to govern responsibly. …

“Moderate Republicans could pass a bill to extend public funding with
Democratic support, but analysts say the US could slip into a shutdown
if party leaders fail in an eleventh-hour effort to agree on concessions
to seal the deal.”

Congress — not known for being a particularly swift-moving body — has
quite a bit of work to get done before the Sept. 30 deadline. Renowned
budget expert Stan Collender tells Politico:

“Technically, it’s a big mess. Congress and the President are
supposed to agree on 12 appropriations bills for every year.

The new
fiscal year starts [on] October 1, and none have been agreed to. In fact
none are even close to being agreed to.

What Congress has got to do
[before the deadline] is come up with an agreement on total federal
spending — that’s defense and domestic — that they haven’t been able to
do for the last nine months.”

Just in case that does not happen, some agencies have already started
preparations for what they’ll do if the government does shut down. One
is the Department of the Interior, which, as the Huffington Post reports, provides some of the higher-profile services.

“During the 16-day shutdown two years ago, the Interior Department
was one of the closed wings of the federal government that drew the most
public attention, because it oversees the National Park Service.

The
closure of the parks drew a lot of public outrage, ruining family
vacations and weddings at sites across the country.

It was also costly
for the government; the Interior Department estimated that the closure
caused $414 million in lost revenue in and around the parks.”

Source

September 20, 2015 – KnowTheLies.com