Congressman Brett Guthrie discusses government shutdown during stop in Bowling Green
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The United States federal government is now going on day 16 of a shutdown and politicians, especially those in the House, are growing increasingly frustrated with those in the Senate who have filibustered a bill to reopen the federal government.
Some money, though, has been reallocated to help pay the military for a short period of time but is not sustainable in the long term.
“We had some consternation in our own group about, well, should we even pass a continuing resolution at that level of spending? And we said, well, ‘we’re going to negotiate. Let’s get to keep the government open in time to negotiate.’ And Chuck Schumer has chosen not to. The Senate has chose not to pass the bill. And it’s frustrating. Our our soldiers deserve to get paid. President Trump’s figured out, he says, ‘I can move money around in the defense budget.’ There’s a lot of money in the defense budget, but not enough to continue this. But our soldiers are going to get paid. But in the FAA budget with TSA over this Homeland Security, but with our air traffic controllers and others, there’s just not enough money to move around to pay everybody,” said Kentucky congressman Brett Guthrie.
However, Guthrie says that there are noticeable differences, though, between this shutdown and other shutdowns during prior administrations.
“The difference is the tone of the presidents, and President Trump has said, ‘let’s make it as, as easy as we can home people.’ When President Obama put pressure on Republicans to try to open the government, to try to make it as hard as he could, and I guess it could be some argument, President Trump took the more political stance. Maybe we could get this done quicker. But he’s doing the right thing. He’s doing not the political, but the statement stance and keeping it open,” Guthrie said.
Guthrie also says the bill is the same one that was offered on Sept. 30, one day before the government shutdown, and contains just what is needed to keep the government open. However, while some money has been able to be moved around to help pay for certain things, it is frustrating as there’s only hope that a conclusion to the shutdown could be sooner rather than later.
“Our bill is a, we’re going to spend the same money we were on Oct. 1 that we spent on Sept. 30. There were no political ploys or political tricks. All it was is a continuing resolution to keep the government open, and Chuck Schumer has chosen to filibuster without delivering the votes and the filibuster. And it’s up to him. I hope it’s sooner rather than later. We can’t continue to patch together money to pay our men and women who are serving, and they deserve to be paid, and hopefully we’ll be able to get it open” Guthrie said.
