Jody Hice, a former congressman who now serves as the Family Research Council's (FRC) senior vice president, recently talked with Tony Perkins about and about the upcoming battle to get spending under control.
"A couple of months ago now, Congress passed a non-limited debt ceiling," Hice recalled. "I think that was a horrible mistake, and we're going to have to deal with it now."
Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and others are pushing for a continuing resolution up until December, but Hice pointed out that lawmakers have had a year to work through this.
"Why would anyone want to continue spending of this administration that is paying to keep the borders open, to weaponize our government, to continue pushing woke policies?" he posed. "Why would we want even one more day of that?"
The White House is urging Congress to pass a short-term funding measure to ensure the government keeps running after September 30th. Last week, Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said Congress can and should prevent the impending government shutdown, but FRC President Tony Perkins disagrees.
"That's not what the freedom caucus and the other conservatives are working for," he noted. "They're working toward a reasonable approach to the funding of the government."
Both he and Hice agreed that COVID gave "a perfect example" of the government's spending habit of throwing money at an emergency that even Biden says no longer exists.
"The idea was we're only doing this one time," Perkins said. "But that's become a part of normal government spending."
"And that's the way government works," Hice added. "Once they get a foot in the door, they never take their foot out."
House conservatives want to return to pre-2020 spending levels; Democrats say conservatives want a government shutdown.
