GOP LaHood doesn’t want government shutdown

Deal or no deal. It’s not clear whether federal lawmakers will be able to reach agreement on a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. They need to pass something by the end of the month.

Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer says he reached a stopgap deal with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to keep the government running for a few weeks after the deadline.

It would provide more time to pass all 12 appropriations bills.

But the short-term fix might not happen because several House Republicans threaten to oppose any spending bill that doesn’t include the cuts they demand.

Here’s a list of some of the federal government shutdowns since 1980:

These are only those that involved significant funding gaps that caused employees to be furloughed. You can see the longer they last, the more they wind up costing the government.

• The mid-1990s shutdowns during the Clinton Administration cost $400 million.
• The tab ran more than $2 billion in 2013 while Obama was in office.
• And the shutdown that lasted more than a month during the Trump years cost $5 billion.

Clearly this is a road we’ve been down before over the years.

Host Jim Niedelman gets into that this morning with Illinois Congressman Darin LaHood.

“We shouldn’t have a government shutdown …. We’ve got to do everything we can to pass a budget,” LaHood said.

To hear what else Darin LaHood has to say, click on the video.

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