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  • 7 weeks ago
Transcript
00:00Congress failed to approve a budget, the federal government ran out of money and shut down.
00:04Should that be allowed?
00:05Some members of Congress think not and introduce a bill to end government shutdowns forever.
00:10This is ridiculous.
00:12I hope all of you are as tired of this as everyone should be.
00:17Senator Ron Johnson and Congressman Dusty Johnson introduced the Eliminate Government
00:22Shutdowns Act.
00:23It was rejected on a bipartisan basis, but if it did pass, here's how it would work.
00:27If Congress fails to approve a budget by the end of the fiscal year, which is always
00:31September 30th, there would be an automatic continuing resolution for 14 days.
00:36That means the previous year's budget would be copied and pasted and all government departments
00:41and agencies would receive two weeks of funding.
00:44If Congress fails to approve a budget within those 14 days, federal departments would automatically
00:49get another two weeks worth of funding, and that process continues until Congress does
00:53its job.
00:54The bill's sponsors say government shutdowns cost billions of dollars, harm the economy,
00:59and don't serve the American people.
01:01Here's what lawmakers told SAN about the bill.
01:03It's not going to pass, but the bottom line here is that shutdowns are bad, and it's an
01:10indication that the system is breaking down between the legislature and the executive and
01:16all of us together.
01:16No one likes them, and there's too many of them.
01:21So my strong preference is no shutdowns.
01:24But it does require that a president be the convener-in-chief, as we've always had in the
01:32past.
01:32It's a circus, and this is no way to run a government.
01:35This is no way to run any organization.
01:37It's ridiculous.
01:37We should be sitting here 20 years from now, not me, because I won't be here, but your
01:42future successors 20 years from now going, remember back in the day when they used to
01:46shut down the government?
01:47Wasn't that silly?
01:48Because it really is.
01:49It really is ridiculous.
01:50I mean, this, you know, we're here in D.C. where the vortex of nonsense is, but out in
01:54regular America, this is viewed really negatively.
01:57If we get to September 30th, we should have a mechanism where the government doesn't automatically
02:02shut down like this.
02:03That would be a very important reform.
02:06And again, I think what we should be doing is fund the government to give more time for
02:10the regular appropriations process to play out.
02:13That's how this thing's supposed to work.
02:14This isn't the first time Congress has tried to end government shutdowns.
02:17Senator James Langford introduced a similar bill in 2023.
02:21That didn't go anywhere either.
02:23I'm Ray Bogan for Straight Hour News.
02:24For more unbiased reporting straight from our nation's capital, download the SAN app.
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