Members of Maine’s congressional delegation say they do not want to see a federal government shutdown, but that a partial shutdown is possible if no agreement is reached by Friday night. Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency, but they still may not be able to garner the votes needed to pass even a short-term government spending bill.
Republican Congressman Bruce Poliquin said in a written statement that he will vote for a continuing resolution crafted by House GOP leadership in order to avoid a shutdown.
Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree agreed that government funding should be continued to provide more time to work out a budget for the rest of the year. Pingree said that negotiations have been complicated by President Trump’s flip-flopping on key budget issues, including the re-authorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Thursday morning the president tweeted that he was opposed to including CHIP in the funding bill.
“Only to come to find out he really didn’t understand it was for six years, not thirty days and once that was explained to him now he is back on board,” Pingree said. “But that just causes this level of chaos and confusion.”
Pingree, who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, says most of the work for a yearly budget has been completed, and is frustrated that leadership has not brought the budget to the floor for a vote.
Republican Susan Collins, who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, says she’s frustrated by Congress’s continued use of short-term, stopgap funding measures, and its failure to pass a budget for the year by the Oct. 1 deadline.
“When we do these stopgap continuing resolutions they lock in last year’s priorities, they don’t provide additional funding for programs that need it,” said Collins. “They don’t terminate programs that should be ended.”
Collins also said she wants the work of the two appropriations committees brought to the floor for votes so it can then move on to the conference committee process.
Collins told reporters in Washington that she will probably vote for another continuing resolution, reluctantly. But Independent Senator Angus King, appearing on CNN, threatened to vote against a continuing resolution (CR).
“I am sick of voting for CR’s,” said King. “This is no way to govern. We haven’t had a budget in twenty years on time. We have had five CR’s in a year, this is the fourth one this year. I think we have to close this escape hatch and stop voting for CR’s.”
King went on to say he might vote for a very short-term funding bill that would last a few days, in order to pass a budget to cover the rest of the year. If some legislation that provides funding for government services is not signed into law by Friday at midnight, there will be a partial shutdown of the federal government.
This story was originally published Jan. 18, 2018 at 5:15 p.m. ET.
