Rep. Duffy: Government Probably Won't Have Budget Shutdown

The government will probably not shut down over the new $1.3 trillion spending bill approved by congressional bargainers Wednesday, Rep. Sean Duffy said Thursday, while predicting the measure will most likely pass the House.

"I don't think we're going to have a shutdown, but you have a lot of members of Congress who are upset about what's happening," the Wisconsin Republican told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." 

"You know how the process works. You pass a budget — we did this last year in the House — and then you pass 12 appropriations bills. You break this up into 12. We did that in the House and sent it to the Senate."

However, he continued, the Senate is "so dysfunctional, they didn't do any appropriations," and all the money ends up in one bill.

"We have had less than 24 hours to review this thing," he said. "It's 2,200 pages, and we have to vote on it. The problem is, there is really good spending in here. We increase funding for our military. We give our troops a pay raise. We help with VA spending. We address opioids, we sent out money for the wall. All good stuff."

However, he added, "we are $21 trillion in debt, and we are spending way too much money...you put guys like me in a hard place, where you want to vote for the good stuff, but you don't want to vote for the bad stuff. You have to take it or leave it, that's what we're left with today."

The spending bill allows more than $1.2 billion for border security enhancements, including high-tech surveillance systems, as well as some $641 million for over 30 miles of new fences and border-crossing obstacles, but Democrats objected to any funding for a permanent wall that will help control illegal immigration across almost 2,000 miles of the border with Mexico.

That falls far short of the $25 billion President Donald Trump is seeking Duffy acknowledged, but still, it's more than $1 billion in a bill that would be in effect through the end of September.

"That's plenty of money to continue construction," Duffy said. "The problem is, in the Senate, you need Democrat votes, and so Democrats get to put their fingerprints on this bill. They don't like Donald Trump. They will don't like border security. They want an open border. So they push back on what Donald Trump ran on, which is border security and building a wall."

In addition, Democrats did not push for movement on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in the bill, and Duffy said that's because they don't want the policy to be fixed.

"Donald Trump offered 1.8 million DACA people to get protection under his plan," said Duffy. "There are only 700,000 or 800,000 people in the program right now, so a million more kids would be protected. if Democrats cared about DACA kids, they would work with the president and Republicans. What they want is a political issue."

Duffy also commented on former Vice President Joe Biden's Wednesday comments that he would beat up Trump if they were both still in high school.

"Here is the problem with Joe Biden," said Duffy. "As a sitting vice president, he had a chance to run for president. But he was frightened away by Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton?

"He didn't have the backbone to run for president. Now is he going to come and say I'm a tough guy I'm going to take on Donald Trump? I would bet on Donald Trump whether they are back in high school or today to take out Joe Biden. But this is ridiculous."

• Trump Supports Massive U.S. Funding Bill, Shutdown Looms
• Congress Slaps Trump: Zero Funding for Border Wall