Gonzales says he has ‘no doubt’ country is headed for shutdown
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) said on Sunday that he has “no doubt” that the country is headed for a government shutdown.
“I don't want to see a shutdown,” Gonzales said in an interview on CBS News’s “Face The Nation.” “But there is no doubt in my mind that the country is headed for a shutdown, and everyone should prepare as such.
Gonzales reiterated his opposition to a continuing resolution (CR), a short-term measure that would sustain current funding levels to buy lawmakers more time to pass the appropriations bills. Congress often passes CRs to avoid government shutdowns when funding runs out at the end of September.
Unlike some of his conservative colleagues, Gonzales stated clearly that he does not want the government to shut down at the end of the month, but he said he doesn’t think a CR would solve the problem of Congress’s failure to fund the government. He pointed to the frequent way Congress gets necessary legislation through right at the last minute.
“In my experience, if you give Congress more time, they're just going to take that time. Time does not equal solutions. The exact opposite – If there is a hard cliff, then they are forced to come together, and that's what I think we need,” he said. “We need to have a hard line that forces everyone to get in the room and pass these bills.”
"Continuing resolutions (CR) don't solve the problem. They just kick the can down the road,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales was also critical of the Biden administration’s border policies and said he’s been working with Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas will meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken this coming week to find tangible policy solutions to solve problems in the more immediate term.
On the prospect of attaching conservative border-related legislation to a CR, Gonzales dismissed the move as a messaging tactic rather than a strategy to produce results.
“There’s a difference between fantasy and reality. And I live in reality. My district is hit with the realities of this border crisis,” Gonzales said about the prospect of border provisions in the CR. “So I'm not looking for a messaging bill that says all the right things and accomplishes nothing.”
“In my eyes, a continuing resolution that just has fake things doesn't get us any closer,” he added. “What we need to do is draw a hard line in the sand and pass appropriation bills and move that over to the Senate and work with the Senate to get this ultimately signed by the President.”