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Republicans and Democrats are continuing to trade blows ahead of a potential government shutdown next week, with both sides indicating that neither is willing to budge from its position on federal funding.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., released a memo earlier this week highlighting past years’ comments by Senate Democrats warning of the pitfalls of a government shutdown.
“House Republicans acted responsibly last week to keep the government open with the clean short-term continuing resolution,” Johnson’s memo said.
“Senate Democrats, who used to warn that shutdowns would hurt seniors, veterans, and working families, are now threatening to force one unless Congress repeals the Working Families Tax Cut, restores taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens, and sends half a billion dollars to leftist news outlets, among other partisan spending demands.”
HOUSE PASSES TRUMP-BACKED PLAN TO AVERT GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
House Speaker Mike Johnson, right, is using Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s, left, and other Democrats’ words against them in a memo on the looming government shutdown threat. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
The rest of the memo features a list of Democrats’ comments, beginning with then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warning on Sept. 16, 2024, “If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans who suffer most.”
At the time, the Democrat-controlled Senate was negotiating with the House GOP majority under then-President Joe Biden to avert a government shutdown. That stand-off ended with Biden signing a short-term extension of the previous fiscal year’s government funding levels on Sept. 26, 2024 — days before the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline — through Dec. 20, 2024.
Johnson’s memo also referenced comments by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from Jan. 4, 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term: “The truth is that shutting down the government is a serious and dangerous action that we must do everything possible to prevent. Shutting down the government would impact tens of millions of our fellow Americans who would be unable to access government services.”
Senate Democrats, then in the minority, agreed to the GOP’s short-term funding bill in exchange for public assurances for a vote on immigration legislation.
Anna Bahr, a spokesperson for Sanders, told Fox News Digital that the Senator “absolutely still believes that a…
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