Senate rejects a proposal to end government shutdowns forever

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00:00Congress failed to approve a budget.

00:01The federal government ran out of money and shut down.

00:04Should that be allowed?

00:06Some members of Congress think not and introduce a bill to end government shutdowns forever.

00:10This is ridiculous.

00:11I hope all of you are as tired of this as everyone should be.

00:18Senator 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.

00:28If 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.

01:05But the bottom line here is that shutdowns are bad, and it's an indication that the system

01:12is breaking down between the legislature and the executive and all of us together.

01:17No 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.

01:33It's a circus.

01:34And this is no way to run a government.

01:35There's no way to run any organization.

01:36It's ridiculous.

01:37We should be sitting here 20 years, not me, because I won't be here, but your future successors

01:4420 years from now going, remember back in the day when they used to shut down the government?

01:47Isn't that silly?

01:48Because it really is.

01:49It really is ridiculous.

01:50You know, we're here in D.C. where the vortex of nonsense is.

01:54But out in regular 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.

02:18Senator 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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