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Lawmakers Struggle Over Solution To Potential Government Shutdown

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Congress is back after taking the summer off and lawmakers are wrangling over how to keep the federal government’s lights on after funding runs out at the end of the month. Virginia lawmakers are upset that they’re left with few good options.

Some of Virginia’s Republicans are some of the most conservative lawmakers in the nation. They’re fighting party leaders over a plan to fund the government until December, just after voters cast their ballot in this year’s election. Virginia Republican Morgan Griffith says that timeline doesn’t make any sense.

“So you’ll have a president who is on his way out, you’ll have a significant number of House and Senate members who are on their way out, and then they’re going to make major decisions that will impact the country? And whether it’s the Democrats who win or the Republicans who win, I think it ought to be the people who win make those decisions. So if we do a six month deal or a one year deal, you have all the folks who went to the ballot box and for whatever reasons were returned or given a seat by the people.”

While some lawmakers are drawing lines in the sand and making demands of party leaders, Griffith says he’s not going that route yet – though he’s keeping the door open to bargaining with leaders in the future.

“I am not personally putting anything in and saying if you do this then, but if there are some things in there I think we might not be able to get any other way, recognizing that it’s probably going to be December by hook or crook, then I might be cajoled into doing it, but it will be distasteful.”

Virginia Republican Dave Brat is also a member of the far right Freedom Caucus which is the group that pushed Speaker Boehner out of office. He says he’s disappointed that Speaker Ryan’s promise that things would be different never came to fruition.

“Paul Ryan came in and leadership promised regular order? That makes all the difference in the world, so now where are we. We’re at the end of the year, in a soap opera with drama breaking out and everything is going to be decided in a week or so. That’s not the way to run a country. That’s not the way to run a budget.”

Some members of the Freedom Caucus have said they could support the bill if leaders included their proposal to ban all Syrian refugees from entering the U-S, but Brat says he needs more than that.

“Some of our folks would like that and I would like that too but it’s nowhere near the scale to trade off against a $4 trillion budget package.”

Congress is a fresh off a seven week summer break, which Virginia Republican Rob Wittman says was a mistake. He says the idea of passing a Continuing Budget Resolution – or CR – that just keeps spending levels the same as they are now, is misguided.

“I have a fundamental disagreement with CR’s - it is not the way for us to budget. I’ve been adamant to say get a budget adopted on time or members should not get a pay check and that we should not be allowed to leave town at the end of July until all 12 appropriations bills are done.”

Democrats just hope the GOP can pass a spending bill over the objection from rank and file lawmakers.

“The first order of business is to make sure we have funding long enough so that we don’t have the government shutdown.”

That’s Virginia Democrat Bobby Scott. Even though he wants a spending bill to pass soon, he says it’s terrible for Virginia officials that the GOP is only giving local officials three months to plan.

“People can’t plan – if you have a transportation bill that’s only a couple months long, no jurisdiction can plan a transportation project not knowing whether the funding will be there in two months or not. You need long term funding and that’s why we need to get our jobs done.”

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