White House advises government agencies to prepare for shutdown as Congress struggles to pass budget

Source: Washington Post

Hours to a midnight shutdown deadline, congressional leaders scrambled to rally support for a sweeping half-trillion-dollar spending deal Thursday amid last-minute objections from a conservative in the Senate, and attacks from left and right in the House.

As opposition appeared to swell in the House and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) threw up last-minute roadblocks in the Senate, White House Office of Management and Budget spokesman John Czwartacki said that agencies are now being urged to review and prepare for lapse in spending after midnight.

Paul, making use of Senate rules that give individual senators enormous power to slow down proceedings that often require the consent of all, demanded a vote on his amendment that would demonstrate how the two-year budget deal breaks past pledges to rein in federal spending.

I cant in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits, Paul said on the Senate floor as evening pushed into night, after objecting as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to move to a vote.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-leaders-scramble-to-win-support-for-budget-deal-ahead-of-midnight-deadline/2018/02/08/4812e996-0cd9-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html