Partial Gov. Shutdown Could Be Days Away, Sen.-Elect Cramer Provides Insight

It could start on Saturday

WASHINGTON – With January a few weeks away, the government will see incumbents as well as some new faces taking over.

Cramer’s transition from the House to the Senate is pretty seamless so far.

But he says it’s unlikely the current House and Senate will say they’re having an easy time coming to an agreement on the funding for President Trump’s border wall.

“The government is funded through Dec. 21. I guess I would expect we’d have some sort of a temporary extension again. So, even if that took us past Christmas or New Year’s. I would guess come January 3 with a brand new congress, we can get something done if we don’t get it done beforehand,” Cramer said.

The U.S. could see a partial, temporary government shutdown after Friday.

Congress has already funded 75 percent of the federal government for the next fiscal year.

That means employees from the other 25 percent of federal government agencies such as the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security wouldn’t get paid until the shutdown ends.

“Most people I talk to are saying, ‘hey, if we have to have a partial temporary government shutdown, to make a point, we encourage you to do that. It’s not necessarily my personal view. I prefer we solve the problem but there are a lot of people that aren’t going to be really concerned about a small, partial shutdown of the government if that’s what it takes to get Nancy Pelosi’s attention,” Cramer said.

Cramer says it’s not just the border wall funding a Democratic–majority House and Republican–led  Senate has to come to an agreement on.

It’s also the Affordable Care Act which a federal judge in Texas just ruled unconstitutional, after Republicans removed the individual mandate.

It fined people who didn’t have health insurance.

“We removed that trigger that made it constitutional in the first place. That was the taxing authority of the federal government. With that trigger removed, I think that judge ruled accurately,” Cramer said.

Now that the ruling is being appealed, Cramer expects it to go to the Supreme Court. He says it’ll then be time for a divided government to compromise.

But as America expects to see some new leadership at the beginning of the year, Cramer says he will be focusing on issues important to North Dakotans.

“While we passed a Farm Bill, I want to work closely with the administration on improving and streamlining things like conservation compliance and how can farmers have clearer signals of environmental stewardship and not be punished for doing good things,” Cramer said.

Cramer says helping veterans will also be at the top of his list in Washington.