Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Disarray threatens the GOP's tenuous grip on the House.
There is little optimism in most quarters for a last-minute rescue plan. And Republicans are feeling a keen sense of apprehension that their party will suffer badly should a shutdown transpire.
“We always get the blame,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a senior appropriator. “Name one time that we’ve shut the government down and we haven’t got the blame.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Tuesday that shutdowns are a political liability for his party as Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to keep the government open.
At his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon, McConnell, R-Ky., made it very clear that he’s “not a fan of government shutdowns.”
“I’ve seen a few of them over the years. They never have produced a policy change and they’ve always been a loser for Republicans politically,” he said.
With less than one week before the end of the fiscal year, extreme House Republicans are playing partisan games with peoples’ lives and marching our country toward a government shutdown that would have damaging impacts across the country—including putting vital nutrition assistance at risk for nearly 7 million women and children who rely on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)—a program that serves nearly half of babies born in this country.
During an Extreme Republican Shutdown, women and children who count on WIC would soon start being turned away at grocery store counters, with a federal contingency fund drying up after just a few days and many states left with limited WIC funds to operate the program.
