Here we are again: three years after a disputes over the budget and the Affordable Care Act shut down the federal government for sixteen days in 2013, lawmakers are again facing a ticking countdown clock to September 30th, when the government officially runs out of money for the year.
In order to prevent a shutdown, the House needs to pass a stopgap spending bill to fund the government after that date. But first, they’ll have to resolve an issue around Planned Parenthood funding.
As the New York Times reports, Democrats have accused Republicans of inserting language limiting Planned Parenthood funding into Zika legislation. In response to that pushback, Republicans have seemed increasingly willingto allow Zika funding provisions to be included without restrictions on Planned Parenthood facilities.
Congressman Michael Capuano, who represents Massachusetts’s seventh district, says he believes Congress will be able to avoid another shutdown this fall.
“The Republicans, after everything is said and done, that’s the one thing they’ve learned from past experience: when they shut the government down, they lose,” said Capuano.
“I don’t think there will be a shutdown,” he continued.
Nevertheless, Capuano said negotiating the stopgap spending bill will likely go down to the “last minute.”
“We’ve got a dozen things some members of the leadership are trying to put into a bill they know we will never accept,” he said.
To hear more from Congressman Capuano, tune in to Boston Public Radio above.
