WASHINGTON (WHTC-AM/FM) – The partial federal government shutdown rolls along into its seventh day with no compromise in sight.
The shutdown is leaving 800-thousand federal employees without pay or on furlough as Congress and the White House battle primarily over border security. President Trump wants five billion dollars to pay for a wall, and tweeted on Friday that he would close the southern border if he doesn’t get his way, while Democrats are apparently waiting until they formally gain control of the House on Wednesday.
The two sides are nearly four billion dollars apart on such funding, and that gulf may be a chasm that may be tough to bridge, according to Republican Congressman Bill Huizenga of Zeeland. “We’re probably going to end up somewhere in (that gap),” he said in his most recent appearance on “WHTC Morning News,” “but that means that they need to be continuing to talk, and you need to have a desire to actually come up with a solution and a resolution.
“The President has certainly been hearing from folks on my side of the aisle. We want to make sure we are sending the message on the importance of this new border security situation, but let’s come to a resolution on that.”
There is another meeting planned for Monday, New Year’s Eve.
