00:00The Senate will come to order. The United States Senate was in session for a
00:04total of 29 seconds on Monday. That's exactly 29 seconds longer than the House
00:10of Representatives. The Capitol building is nearly empty a week away from a
00:15government shutdown. It makes one wonder if failing to fund the government is as
00:19harmful to the economy and the American people as lawmakers say it is, why aren't
00:23they here? All right, so the House and Senate were already scheduled to be on
00:28recess this week for Rosh Hashanah and the House of Representatives was
00:32originally scheduled to come back on Monday the 29th, but now Speaker Johnson
00:36pushed that back until at least October 1st. That's really important because the
00:41government funding deadline is September 30th. So now they're scheduled to come
00:45back after the government is already shut down. The strategy for that is they
00:50believe it will put pressure on the Senate to pass a continuing resolution to keep
00:55the government open on a temporary basis while they come up with a permanent
00:59solution. All right, let's go inside. Hello? Hello? Hello? No, still nobody. Perhaps this is a good time to tell you that since 1977 the government has shut down 20 times.
01:13Take for instance the shutdown from December 2018 to January 2019. It cost the
01:18economy an estimated 11 billion dollars and there were some real-world consequences.
01:22For instance, the Food and Drug Administration had to stop doing routine
01:26inspections. But personally, for federal workers who don't make a lot of money, it's
01:31very difficult because they are not getting their paychecks and they have to
01:35figure out how to stretch what little money they have in their bank account.
01:38Echo. Echo. Echo. We haven't found anyone to interview yet, but members of Congress
01:46frequently remind us that they're the Article 1 branch with the power of the purse, so
01:50clearly, we just haven't knocked on the right door. Oh, wait a minute. This is the
01:55Appropriations Committee. This is perfect.
02:00Locked. Darn heck.
02:03So, this is the point of the story where we were going to include an interview with a
02:07member of Congress explaining the latest information, but we don't have that. So,
02:11instead, what we'll do is say, not only is Congress struggling to come up with a deal
02:15for fiscal year 2026, they never came up with a deal for fiscal year 2025. They pretty much copied
02:22and pasted 2024's budget and used it for all of this year. And that's how the government has been
02:28operating. Fiscal conservatives don't like that. It's Biden's budget. We are renewing Biden's budget
02:34without cutting any of it. And I think elections should have consequences. I don't think Donald Trump
02:40should be operating on Joe Biden's last budget. I held my nose and voted for it. I think it's a poor
02:45way. We're abdicating our duties. We have one job up here, and that's to pass a budget. We haven't done it
02:50in over 30 years. Democrats want to reverse Medicaid cuts Republicans approved in July.
02:55They also want to extend Obamacare tax credits that help low-income individuals pay their premiums.
03:02And I hope we can make some sort of deal. I hope we can save people's health insurance. We are making
03:07this about health insurance. And we'll have to see what happens. So that's what conservatives and
03:12liberals are saying about the situation. Just not to each other's faces, because they're not here.
03:17I'm Ray Bogan for Straight Hour News. For more unbiased reporting, direct from our nation's capital,
Be the first to comment