The White House hammered House Republicans for threatening to shut down the government unless the border is closed.
House Republicans: Shut Down The Border, Or We’ll Shut Down The Government
Fox News reported on the latest MAGA shutdown threat:
NEW: GOP Congressmen @RepAndyBiggsAZ @RepMattGaetz @RepEliCrane @RepBobGood @RepRosendale here in Eagle Pass, TX now, ahead of delegation of nearly 60 others today w/ @SpeakerJohnson . They tell me “shut the border down, or we’ll shut the government down. We control the money.” pic.twitter.com/mdiCaUWnfa
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 3, 2024
The border is at least the third issue that Republicans have used as a reason for a government shutdown since they took control of the majority. Previously, Republicans claimed that government spending was the reason why they wanted to shut down the government. Some MAGA House Republicans have also expressed a desire to shut down the government unless the criminal cases against Donald Trump end.
Now, the border is the big issue that Republicans claim they must get their way on to avoid a government shutdown.
The White House Hammers House Republican Border Hypocrisy
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in response to the Republican shutdown threat:
There they go again: ‘we’ll shut the government down. We control the money.’ After voting to eliminate thousands of Border Patrol agents and undercut our fentanyl crackdown, opposing the record border security funding President Biden delivered, and now blocking his urgently-needed proposal to hire more CBP agents and invest in new fentanyl-detection technology, House Republicans are once more compromising America’s national security and economic growth with shutdown threats.
President Biden submitted his border security funding plans in August and again in October. But after taking the country to the brink of a shutdown in the fall and forcing three weeks of paralysis as they found a new Speaker, the House GOP left Washington in mid-December for an early vacation they still haven’t returned from. Today’s statements are just House Republicans’ latest admission that as President Biden and both parties in the Senate seek common ground to address the needs of the American people, their conference is instead choosing extreme politics that would subject American families to needless pain.
Shutting Down The Government Won’t Fix The Border
The most deranged piece of the House Republican threat is the reality that shutting down the government would be the worst course of action to deal with the immigration issue.
The ideal step that Republicans in the House could take would be to sit down with the Senate and White House to negotiate a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
Since House Republicans aren’t interested in governance, and would rather threaten and hostage take to get their own way, they are proposing a step that will only make the problem that they claim to care so much about worse.
The government shutdown threat is proof that House Republicans have no interest in governing. The House majority is playing politics and trying to score points ahead of an election.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
