Grassley talks about budget deadline approaching

WASHINGTON — Less than two weeks remain before Congress has to pass at least continuing budget resolutions to avoid a shutdown.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley tells NorthIowaNow.com News that a government shutdown benefits nobody.  “The continuing resolution for your listeners is simply extending what we’re spending for the last 12 months into next year so government keeps functioning, and I hope that happens. I don’t want government to shut down. It costs money to shut the government down, it costs money to open the government up. It even costs money for a week to ten days before you might shut down to get ready to shut down.”

Grassley says government is meant to be a service to the American people.  “You can’t serve the American people if you aren’t in the office, functioning as the government, and it’s just a bad thing to do. We should keep government operating and not waste a lot of money, particularly when we’re already so far in debt.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson scrapped plans last week to vote on a partisan funding plan that coupled a six-month continuing resolution with a bill that would require proof of citizenship to be able to register to vote, but he announced on Tuesday that the House would vote on that plan later today.