CORAL GABLES, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, (R-Florida), was in Coral Gables Tuesday where he weighed in on a possible government shutdown as Democrats and Republicans in Congress have been unable to find agreement even as thousands of federal workers stand to be furloughed or laid off.
“The Democrats in the Senate and the Democrats in general are trying to play games with this continued resolution,” Gimenez told reporters. “They want to put policy writers, they want to increase spending by about a trillion and a half dollars – something that, you know, that we are not willing to do – the Republicans are not willing to do. The Democrats should do the responsible thing – keep the government running.”
“House Democrats are on duty; House Republicans are on vacation. Shame on them,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, told reporters outside the U.S. Capitol. “They’re on vacation because they’d rather shut the government down than protect the health care of the American people. That’s unfathomable. That’s unacceptable.”
The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday if the Senate does not pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills.
Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for it unless Republicans include an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands. President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans say they won’t negotiate, arguing that it’s a stripped-down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial.
It’s unclear if either side will blink before the deadline.
The stakes are huge for federal workers across the country as the White House told agencies last week that they should consider “a reduction in force” for many federal programs if the government shuts down.
That means that workers who are not deemed essential could be fired instead of just furloughed. Either way, most would not get paid.
Trump said Tuesday that “we may do a lot” of layoffs, “and it’s only because of the Democrats.”
Trump’s budget director, Russ Vought, told reporters at the White House that a shutdown would be managed “appropriately, but it is something that can all be avoided” if Senate Democrats accepted the House-passed bill.
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