Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) argued in a column for the conservative Washington Examiner that Congress should let the federal government shut down for a month and just wait for President-elect Donald Trump to take office.
In particular, he blasted leadership for not passing a long-term budget and simply passing a string of "continuing resolutions" to kick the can down the road on maintaining government funding.
"This embarrassing failure apparently isn’t too embarrassing because Congress persists in it. The only exception is that Congress periodically crams all of the programs and bills into a single entity called 'omnibus' legislation for the purpose of raising the spending levels, structural deficit, and national debt — all the while, of course, funding new monstrous federal programs," wrote Biggs, who recently tried to push the House to arrest Attorney General Merrick Garland. "Then, once again, Congress will go back to its spending and legislative addiction, the continuing resolution. In fact, Congress has passed a continuing resolution 34 times in the last 10 years. And there is talk of another this month."
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"At the same time, because we can’t, or won’t, eliminate, modify, or combine federal programs in a continuing resolution, we see the immortality of the federal bureaucracy. We continue to fund the odious Planned Parenthood. The World Health Organization, United Nations, and other anti-American institutions continue to receive our dues money," he raged.
Biggs accused the Education Department of "targeting" Christian universities, and attacked the State Department for "propagandizing against conservatives."
"You can never rein in spending or eliminate wasteful or harmful federal programs if you fail to pass budget bills," he concluded. "I’d rather let a lapse in spending kick in on Dec. 20 until the new Trump administration takes over in January 2025."
A federal government shutdown would lead to hundreds of thousands of people suspended from work and massive shocks to the economy. One shutdown that occurred during the previous Trump administration, as Trump demanded money for his border wall, only let up when the strain on air traffic controllers threatened to collapse the U.S. air travel system.