Why is the continuation of the government so short?

Congressman Mike Carey discusses why the shutdown did not have to happen, and what comes next in DC

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, over to the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line.
We welcome in one of our good friends and one
of the good guys in the swamp. It's Congressman Mike Kerry,
Ohio's fifteenth district. Mike, good morning, Thanks for the time.
I know you've been incredibly busy. We usually have you
scheduled on Wednesdays. But talk about your day briefly. Yesterday
you were on a flight early morning to DC.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yes, oh that's right. Well, you know, I took the
six am flight to DC because we knew the issue
was with traffic. We weren't sure in terms of what
flights would be canceled, what flights would be delayed. We
were told that we would likely be voting sometime around
four o'clock. So the plan was if I missed that

(00:41):
six am flight, and I talked to my colleague, Troy Balderson,
who's from Zanesville. He actually drove in. I believe Joyce
Bady flew in as well. She didn't fly on the
flight with me. But you know, across the country, you
had every single member that was trying to get in
in as early as Monday. The Speaker and the leadership

(01:02):
team we're telling us, hey, get to d C as
soon as possible, because we just couldn't risk anything because
of you know, because of the shutdown, you know, and
making sure that you got your travel plans so we
could have enough people to vote on the floe, and
ultimately we did last night.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
So well, thank you for your vote yesterday. We appreciate it.
The longest government shut down in American history ended yesterday.
I know you voted for it. I know A balder said,
how did Joyce vote yesterday?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
By the way, you know, I know there were six
or seven Democrats that actually joined Republicans on the House version.
I haven't seen the full list of people that voted
for it, okay, but I think in the end, I
think the key here was is that we do have
the government open, and it was signed by the President
last night. I think the Speaker was very clear last night.
I saw an interview with him, you know, right after

(01:51):
the vote. He said, you know, our long national night,
Mayor is open, Asar is over. Yeah, and the government's open.
So but you know, I think again, I think when
you start looking at the benefits of what's happened, it
never had to be this way, you know, we could
have passed this clean CR weeks ago. You know, the
Senate tried fourteen times to pass a clean CR. Again,

(02:15):
the Democrats, my colleagues on the other side, did this
over thirteen times. This is all Biden Area, Biden era funding.
So we've got the government open. I think part of
the package that they did include in the bill. Obviously
the extension will go into January of twenty twenty six.
We could find ourselves back at the discussion again in

(02:37):
January twenty twenty six. But I think the President of
the Senate had some negotiations with Democrat senators about the
health care provisions that were set to expire. Anyway, there
was nothing in the clean CR that had anything to
do with healthcare. This was something that the Democrats. The
time frame the Democrats put on all of the health

(03:00):
care provisions. Anyway, this could have been a discussion that
we've had for the last five weeks, but because we
were closed, we couldn't have it. But when you looked
at the bill, I think for Central Ohio, you know,
there were a couple added provisions. We got three of
the appropriation packages funded, which I think is very important.

(03:20):
Those included the Agriculture, FDA, the military construction, and obviously
the ledge brands and these fundings will go for a
three full your measure, so that's solid. But as part
of that, folks and o bets will get their water
tower that we submitted over a cup few million dollars
for that. Madison County get the Sheriff's office department building,

(03:43):
which is something that they've needed for quite some times.
So we've been able to get those things done and
keep the government open, get people back to work, federal employees,
VA benefits, snap Wick cut off all those things. We'll
go back and of course for somebody like me today
to traveling back to central Ohio, you know, air traffic controllers,

(04:04):
that's that's gonna be big.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
So get those folks back to work. And as you
pointed out, you know, the snap benefits are fully funded
for another year. And you are too kind. I'm not
so nice about this. And you said this, you know,
was kind of could have been avoided. This was absolutely pointless, Congressman,
absolutely point The Democrats got nothing, none of their requested provisions,

(04:26):
mainly the Obamacare subsidies. Uh, they got nothing out of this.
Why why did we go through this Dog and Pony Show.
I mean, I think I know the answer, and it
gets two people. It's Chuck Schumer and Hakim Jefferies prioritizing
their political positions instead of helping hungary Americans and American travelers.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's ridiculous, You're right. I mean, here, the bottom line
was this was being driven not by by Chuck Schumer
or Jeffries. I think this was being driven by the
progressive side of their party. And I think in the end,
you know, you didn't see a push by And I
think even if you listened to Jeffrey's magic minute last night,

(05:05):
it was you know, he could have went on for
you know, hours, you know, like he did during you know,
during our reconciliation plan. But I think in the end,
they were trying to appease the far left. I think
they wanted to get through. They had a couple of
items that they wanted to get through. They wanted to
get through the election. But in the end, who did
they hurt. They hurt it. They hurt the people that

(05:26):
were you know, relying on Snap, relying on Wick, the
people that were traveling that the workers it hadn't been paid,
you know, our team here in the federal office. All
of our employees remained working on behalf of the people
of the fifteenth Congressional District without paychecks, you know, and
I know that, like many members be included, we voluntarily said, listen,

(05:49):
we're not going to get paid unless the rest of
the federal government gets paid. So the hurt was put
on the American people for political reasons. I think there
were Democrats and Republicans that came together last night they said,
enough is enough. This didn't have to be this way.
We can negotiate, we can talk about the issues that
we need to talk about, but let's get the government

(06:11):
back working for the American people. And that's what you saw.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Last night, Congressman Mikeerry Ohio's fifteenth district. So we're funded
now fully until January thirtieth. And my worry is, Congressman,
is that this is going to happen again. What can
we do to prevent the Democrats from pulling some sort
of political stunt again here in two and a half months.
And then the part two to that question is why
can't we fully fund the government for longer than two

(06:35):
months at a shot? Can we not do six months
or a year?

Speaker 2 (06:38):
You know, I think this the number. Yeah, I would
have liked to have seen that. I think the key
what we were trying to get done, I think, and
that again bipartisanly. I think if you look at the
measures as it related to the appropriations process, both by partisan,
all three of those were bipartisan. We have nine other
appropriations bills. This should give us enough time to address
those nine bills. I mean, you saw they work pretty

(07:02):
when they work together to try to get these three done.
We've got nine more. The thought is we can get
these appropriations done through the end of January twenty twenty six.
But you know, again, I mean it's going to require
a lot of work. You've seen them opening up days
next week for example, were set to continue to vote
all the way through Friday. Committees will start their work again.

(07:24):
But yeah, there's nothing that says that the Democrats wouldn't
try to shut this down again in January twenty twenty six.
But I do believe that, you know, when you saw
the movement from the people that voted for our clean
CR the first time to the clean CR this time,
along with the appropriations process, I think you saw a

(07:45):
movement on the Democrats because again, people that were affected
by this shutdown. Weren't just Republicans or independents, they were
also Democrats. I think everybody in this country was affected
by this, and clearly it didn't have to be this way.
I think in the end, over the next couple of weeks,
as the media has time to kind of piece back

(08:06):
all of the items that happened during this process, I
realized this was a waste of time, it was a
political stunt, and it didn't have to be this way.