Lawmakers are rushing to approve a short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), ahead of Friday's deadline to briefly extend the deadline to January and avoid a government shutdown. Republicans are hoping to block its passage or at least delay it past the midnight deadline Friday unless Democratic leaders agree to strip out funding to enforce the mandate.
The caucus, chaired by Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., wrote in its letter:
"Today the House of Representatives will pass, over our objection, a continuing resolution to fund government without ending any of President Biden's very damaging, unAmerican, and in the worst cases, unlawful vaccine mandates.Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who chairs the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said he's confident Republicans won't follow through on their threat.
"As you know, the current government funding mechanism expires on Friday night, thus the Senate Republican conference enjoys important leverage against those mandates. We therefore write to request that you use all procedural tools at your disposal to deny timely passage of the CR unless it prohibits funding - in all respects - for the vaccine mandates and enforcement thereof."
He told Fox News on Wednesday:
"I don't think Republicans want to be involved in shutting down the government. They've done that before [and] it backfired."McConnell said Tuesday that he didn't foresee a shutdown:
"We won't shut down. I think we'll get there and certainly nobody should be concerned about a government shutdown."
Comment: Default lies with Congress. Send them the bill, not the American public.