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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024.
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Here's what's at stake for Pa. if Congress can't agree on how to fund the federal government

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Here's what's at stake for Pa. if Congress can't agree on how to fund the federal government

While House GOP leaders say there's a deal, there's no guarantee lawmakers will go along

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WASHINGTON — The security screeners at Pittsburgh International Airport still will be on the job but working without pay. So too will those Keystone State residents serving in the Armed Forces. And hungry Pennsylvania families may find their federal nutrition benefits lacking. 

A Saturday deadline to fund or shut down the federal government loomed large after House Republicans first blew up a bipartisan, bicameral agreement to fund government operations into March in response to demands by President-elect Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk that the measure also increase the government’s borrowing limit; and then failed on Thursday to pass the Trump-endorsed GOP-only bill after three dozen GOP members voted no.

U.S. Reps. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, and Glenn Thompson, R-Centre, voted yes; Reps. Chris Deluzio, D-Aspinwall, and Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, voted no. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, did not vote.

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“I cannot believe Republican leaders in Congress want to shut the government down if we don’t let their corporate bosses and billionaires keep plowing investments into communist China,” Mr. Deluzio said on X. “I’m a bipartisan hell no on outsourcing jobs to China and screwing over American workers. Western PA didn’t send me to Washington to sell out American workers and industry or to funnel money to Communist China.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks briefly to reporters just before a vote on an interim spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. The vote failed to pass.
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And Ms. Lee said on X that the Republican proposal wasn’t “about protecting working families at all. It’s about paving the way for tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s about gutting Social Security and Medicare and slashing critical programs like drug price reforms and cancer research.”

Lawmakers were told Friday that another vote was expected later that day. Whatever bill emerges must attract Democratic support since there are not enough Republicans willing to vote for it, but the Democrats so far have refused to support anything but the bill that both parties agreed on.

“If the House put our original agreement on the floor today, it would pass. And we could put the threat of a shutdown behind us,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday.

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This was the second time in 15 months that House Republicans have brought the government to the precipice of a shutdown by refusing to compromise with the Democrats, who control the White House and Senate. 

And it would be the first shutdown since 2018 — the record-long 35-day closure that occurred the last time Trump was in the White House and Republicans controlled the House.

“I've been saying for months that I was worried about bringing a chaos agent to Washington, D.C., and the impact that that was going to have on our country,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said. “You're beginning now to see that chaos.”

A failure to pass a short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, threatens $728 million in aid included in the measure to help the Keystone State recover from the damage from this year’s storms. 

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla.
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“Americans have courageously worked to rebuild their homes, restore their communities, and reestablish their local economies, and they have patiently awaited long-due assistance from their government to help in managing and funding these efforts,” said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. “That is all now at risk.”

It also threatens $10 billion in aid to farmers and a one-year extension of legislation authorizing farm and nutrition programs. Farming supports more than 593,000 jobs in Pennsylvania and contributes $132.5 billion to the state’s economy, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

And if a funding bill doesn’t pass and the federal government shuts down, here’s what it would mean to Western Pennsylvania:

Air travel. Though they wouldn’t be paid until after a shutdown ends, 1,150 Transportation Security Administration screeners would have to report to work at Pennsylvania airports at one of the busiest travel times of the year. The TSA said these employees “still need to pay their rent, make the car payment, pay their credit card bills, buy gasoline and go grocery shopping among other regular bills.”

The TSA said it expected to screen 40 million passengers over Christmas and New Year’s but warned that an extended shutdown could lead to longer waits to get through security. 

Air traffic controllers wouldn’t get paid either, and during the last shutdown so many of them eventually decided not to show up that a number of flights had to be delayed or canceled.

Federal workers. Except for those deemed essential, the almost 35,700 federal workers in Western Pennsylvania would be furloughed without pay until a bill funding the government was signed into law. A 2019 law gives federal employees retroactive pay after the shutdown ends.

“A government shutdown would deliver a devastating blow to hardworking federal employees and the millions of citizens who rely on essential government services,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “Allowing them to go without a paycheck over the holidays is unacceptable.”

Military. Members of the Armed Forces also wouldn’t get paid but would continue to serve. There are almost 2,300 active duty service members in Pennsylvania who would be affected.

National parks. Most national parks would be shuttered and park rangers furloughed. Visitors to parks still accessible to the public would find visitors’ centers closed.

Nutrition aid. Recipients of aid from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, would see their benefits eventually end, affecting more than 182,000 Pennsylvanians. That includes, on average, 101,377 children and 41,178 infants.

Railroad safety. Most proposed new rules would be put on hold, even as the issue gained new prominence after the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment in February 2023.

And 2023 preliminary figures showed 1,229 people dying in crashes in Pennsylvania, up 4.2% over the 1,179 deaths recorded in 2022.

“A shutdown would bring to a screeching halt our agency’s ability to advocate for the safety measures needed to achieve zero deaths,” National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said.

A shutdown in September 2023 was averted only after House GOP leaders dropped their demands for sharp spending cuts. But they needed support from Democratic lawmakers to pass the bill

But Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance demanded in a statement before the failed vote that all Democratic priorities should be excised from the spending bill and the debt limit provision added.

“Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” they said in a statement.

Then the Trump transition team blamed the legislation’s loss on the Democratic minority, not the 38 Republicans who defied their leader and the president-elect, preventing the Republican majority from passing its own bill. “Democrats just voted to shut down the government,” the statement said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., reiterated Friday that the Democrats would not back a Republican-only measure.

“Republicans would rather cut taxes for billionaire donors than fund research for children with cancer,” he said on Bluesky. “That is why our country is on the brink of a government shutdown that will crash the economy, hurt working class Americans and likely be the longest in history.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., initially had defended the bipartisan legislation, saying that the GOP would be able to control spending once Trump was in the White House and Republicans had majorities in both houses of Congress.

As for now, “Republicans CANNOT allow millions of Americans devastated by the historic hurricane season, or our struggling farmers, go without the help they desperately need,” Mr. Johnson said on X.

Mr. Shapiro said he hoped the dispute would be resolved soon.

“I would hope that every member of our delegation – our congressional delegation in Washington – understands that it is important to focus less on social media and posting and more on actually voting for progress for Pennsylvania and progress for this country,” he said. “ And so that is my hope for them, but I can't control what they do. I can only control what I can control. And we're moving in the right direction here in Pennsylvania.”

First Published: December 19, 2024, 8:57 p.m.
Updated: December 20, 2024, 8:41 p.m.

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