Lawmakers are inching ever closer to a government shutdown. It’s true that Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, is still two weeks away, but House conservatives continue to play hardball with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
The GOP leadership on Tuesday postponed a key vote needed to bring up the fiscal 2024 defense appropriations bill, a measure normally popular with Republicans and relatively easy to pass. A group of hard-line conservatives are demanding the leadership’s commitment to carry out deeper cuts in federal spending.
“They've got to come forward with a real plan,” Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., told reporters. He went on, “I'm not going to abide, or cast a vote in favor of, just continuing the massive increases in the debt, the spending and just keep rolling.”
While we have been down this road before and actually experienced government shutdowns, the tone this time is real and determined. It will take the Senate – the so-called upper body – to convince the House that government funding must move forward and avert a shutdown.