Government Shutdown: US Barreling Toward Deadline
Congress remained on track Friday to trigger a government shutdown, as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy suffered another high-profile defeat when the chamber failed to advance a last-ditch stopgap bill to extend government funding past a critical deadline.
McCarthy is under intense pressure as House Republicans have not been able to coalesce around a plan to prevent a shutdown amid hard-line conservatives’ resistance to passage of a short-term funding extension.
Late Friday evening, McCarthy wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that a bipartisan Senate proposal to keep the government funded through November 17, which includes aid for Ukraine, “has no path forward and is dead on arrival,” calling the bill “misguided.” Speaking to reporters earlier in the evening, McCarthy argued that aid to Ukraine should be dropped from the Senate bill.
“I think if we had a clean one without Ukraine on it, we could probably be able to move that through.
I think if the Senate puts Ukraine on there and focuses on Ukraine over America, I think that could cause real problems,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.
McCarthy is now confronting the most significant challenge to his leadership to date as he faces pushback from hardline conservatives and threats over the possibility of a vote to oust him as speaker.
GOP Rep. Ken Buck, who voted against the House GOP stopgap funding measure Friday, said the failed effort was a “no confidence vote” in McCarthy.
“This was a vote where people didn’t have faith that Kevin McCarthy was going to do the right thing.
We passed a vote on the debt ceiling.
He went and negotiated a significantly higher number with President Biden.
People don’t have faith that when it comes time to negotiate he’s going to do the right thing,” Buck told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.”
A shutdown could have enormous impacts across the country, in consequential areas ranging from air travel to clean drinking water, as many government operations would come to a halt, while services deemed “essential” would continue.
It is crucial for Congress to find a solution and prevent a government shutdown before the deadline.
#latestnews #news #cnn