Is A Government Shutdown On The Horizon?

A government shutdown looms less than three-weeks away and lawmakers still can’t agree on how to avert it and the impact it could have on constituents, including farmers and ranchers.  The only agreement by the two parties’ Congressional leaders so far is the need for a continuing budget resolution to keep the lights on. But what’s in it and how long it should last is undecided.

Top Senate Appropriations Democrat Washington's Patty Murray hopes three Senate-passed spending bills, including one for the USDA, can be salvaged.

“As part of a bipartisan short-term CR, I support conferencing those three-bills and passing them with the short-term CR for the remaining nine bills.”

But doing so is uncertain, as is the length of a continuing resolution.

“My hope would be that whatever that CR looks like, that it’s clean and that it enables us to buy some time to get a regular appropriations process done," noted Senate Majority Leader John Thune.  "But we will, inevitably, it looks like, need a CR for some time in the foreseeable future. And what that looks like and how long that might extend, I think probably is a matter of discussion.”

Senate Democrats insist Republicans first restore Obamacare subsidies clipped earlier, while President Trump wants a CR into late January.

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