Shutdown Anxiety Rises on Capitol Hill

“The president in charge during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history has returned to the White House, current government funding expires in less than six weeks — and on Capitol Hill, people are nervous,” Politico reports.

“It’s not just President Donald Trump’s history of leading the country through a 35-day funding lapse that has lawmakers worried about his appetite for another one in March. It’s also that Trump’s actions in his first two weeks back in office are stifling bipartisan negotiations toward a funding deal as the president — and his ‘government efficiency’ chief, Elon Musk — work to bulldoze the federal bureaucracy while freezing billions of dollars Congress already enacted and firing federal workers.”

Said House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK): “I don’t think anybody thinks a shutdown is a good thing. But the politics are such that we could certainly stumble into one without meaning to.”