Government Shutdown Is on the Horizon, Pelosi Says

For some, good news is only a sign of bad things to come.

That appeared to be the case Thursday for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. While most Democrats were celebrating the 223,000 jobs the U.S. economy added in June, Pelosi was quick to point out how economic gains could soon all unravel with a government shutdown.

“June’s job’s report shows our economy continuing to move in the right direction, extending the longest uninterrupted stretch of private sector job creation in our history,” Pelosi said in a statement. She continued, however: “Yet again and again, the shutdowns and manufactured crises of the Republican Congress have put this progress at risk, costing our country jobs, weakening our economy, and undermining hard-working families.”

The House has approved six of the 12 required appropriations bills for fiscal 2016, while committees in both chambers have made more progress. Pelosi called those bills “deeply destructive.” 

The spending measures will “cost our country good-paying jobs and choke off our investments in the future, driving our nation toward another government shutdown,” the Democratic leader said. She also deplored Congress for allowing the charter of the Export-Import Bank to expire.

President Obama has promised to veto all of the spending measures approved by the House so far, saying any legislation that continues the cuts required by the 2011 Budget Control Act would not adequately fund federal agencies. The compromise budget deal between the House and Senate included $496 billion in cuts to non-Defense discretionary funding over 10 years.

Pelosi is not the first Democratic leader to sound the shutdown warning bells; Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has also said, “It appears to me, [with] what Republicans are doing that we’re headed for another shutdown.”