For Congress to avoid a government shutdown, a funding bill will need to be passed by midnight Sept. 30.
Meanwhile, negotiations for a continuing resolution continue in the U.S. Senate as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to unveil the plan Tuesday.
Thursday on Real Talk 99.5’s “News and Views,” U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt said he’s “optimistic” Congress will avoid a government shutdown.
“I’m still optimistic that we can get a deal,” Aderholt said, “because everybody knows it’s an election year and everybody wants to try and get back in here in October and then we can come settle these issues after the election.”
The congressman said the chances are they will pass some kind of stop-gap spending bill.
“Right now, I’m hearing a continuing resolution through mid-December is what would most likely happen,” he said, “but nothing’s a done deal at this point. There’s still a lot of stuff up in the air.”
While Aderholt would prefer the government actually pass a budget instead of a continuing resolution, he said Congress is currently too divided to get one done.
“Well you do a continuing resolution when you don’t have a consensus,” he said. “There is a lack of consensus and because of that it gives rise to a continuing resolution because no one wants to shut down the government. You don’t want our military to be stopped, we don’t want our troops to stop being paid, we don’t want our Social Security checks to stop getting out into the mail. So, that’s why we can get a consensus on a CR but can’t get a consensus on the bigger picture.”
He also hopes Republicans will be able to start tackling the out-of-control spending once they regain the majority and force President Biden to compromise with them.
“We’ve got to do something about the debt limit,” he said. “Republicans, we could say ‘you’ve got a very high price to pay for us to vote for a debt limit.’”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
