Tonight, Speaker Boehner informed House Republicans that tomorrow, at the Speaker’s direction, House Administration Committee Chairman Dan Lungren will issue guidance to all members on how the House would operate in the event Senate Democrats shut down the government. Because of the Senate's failure to do its job and pass legislation to cut spending and fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, Speaker Boehner made clear we have no choice but to prepare the House, and the American people, for a shutdown. The discussion with Democrats will continue, but the House has an obligation to be ready if the White House and Senate Democrats choose to shut down the government.It is good to note that Speaker Boehner is both taking action to prepare the US House for a government shutdown and also proceeding to again offer a Continuing Resolution with spending cuts that would keep the DOD and the government running through September.
Speaker Boehner also said House Republicans will post online tonight the text of a bill that will make significant spending cuts and fund the Department of Defense though September while keeping the government running. Other provisions may be included as well. We hope the White House and Senate Democrats will get serious about making real spending cuts on a long-term bill, but this measure provides us with an option if House Republicans choose to use it.
The American public should be mindful that we would not be in the position of facing a Federal government shutdown if the previously Democratic controlled House and Senate had passed a budget for FY 2011. Even though required by law, they refused to pass a budget which would have been open to review and debate and subject questionable areas to public review. Also, recall that Pelosi and Reid had the votes to pass said budget when they ran both houses of Congress.
However, the Democrats sought to avoid giving ammunition to their future campaign opponents and to voters in the November 2010. With rising groups of concerned citizens and with polling indicating that the Democrats could well loose the House of Representative, they hoped to avoid loosing control of the US Senate. The democrats clearly planned to blame any future shutdown on the Republicans who they knew would focus on federal spending. However, Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has been continually confronted with the responsible actions by the House Republicans who have passed short term continuing resolutions which contained identified reasonable spending cuts that could be supported by many Senate Democrats as well as all the Republicans.
It has been the Speaker and House republicans who have led in offering responsible continuing resolutions to continue operations during the current year. Note, that unlike the previous Pelosi led House, the new republican led House of Representatives is already working on preparing a budget for CY 2012.
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