Karoline Leavitt: Democrats Have ‘Zero Good Reason’ to Shut Down Government

Democrats have “zero good reason” to shut down the government by not supporting a clean continuing resolution (CR), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday appearance on Fox News.

“Let me be very clear about the President and the White House’s position. All we are asking for is a common sense, clean funding resolution — a continuing resolution to keep the government open,” Leavitt said, explaining that this bill simply keeps the government funded “at the exact same levels as today, just adjusted for inflation.”

“So there is zero good reason for the Democrats to vote against this, especially when the Democrats have voted for this 13 previous times, as recently as March,” she pointed out, describing this as the reasonable and commonsense thing to do.

“The President is giving Democrat leadership one last chance to be reasonable, to come to the White House today, to try to talk about this, and now is not the time to try to get political points against Donald Trump,” she said, calling on Democrats to “do right by the American people and keep the government funded.”

“Our most vulnerable in our society and our country will be impacted by a government shutdown. Everybody knows this, and that’s why Republicans and the President want to keep the government open, and we welcome Democrats to join us in that effort,” she added.

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) echoed those sentiments during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily, explaining that Democrats essentially want to shut the government down over COVID-era giveaways.

“They want us to extend COVID era enhanced premium tax credits that helped to give, you know, give away health insurance to people, some people making 400 percent, 500 percent, 600 percent of poverty. … At the very least, Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress are not going to give that away for just a six week pause in a shutdown,” he said on Monday, maintaining that Republicans are offering a squeaky-clean CR.

“During COVID, the Democrats — Obamacare already gave pretty big tax credits to people so they could buy health insurance on the Obamacare exchange. These are not affected. Those are not affected by this debate,” the congressman continued.

“During COVID, even more money was layered on top of that. Again, COVID. COVID has been gone for five years. Those COVID-era extra tax credits expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t do something. The Democrats are saying, we are going to ransom a six-week short term funding package, and we will not agree with that, a clean six-week CR, unless we continue the COVID-era giveaways,” he revealed. “It’s insanity.”

He added that this potential shutdown is wholly “manufactured by Chuck Schumer.”