As House lawmakers prepare to vote for a third time on a potential continuing resolution (CR) to avoid a government shutdown, “Mr. Wonderful” is giving the stark reality on what will likely happen by Friday’s deadline.
“This is classic, shut down [the] government, bad Christmas movie. We’ve seen it so many times. This is how sausage is made in Washington. I like this political theater. I love it when there’s profanity on the floor during the speeches and everybody’s ranting and raving,” O’Leary Ventures Chairman Kevin O’Leary said Friday on “Varney & Co.”
“They’re going to punt for two to three weeks because they want to go home for the holidays. It’s that simple,” he continued. “That’s the solution.”
One Republican lawmaker told reporters on Capitol Hill that the House is planning to vote on another CR proposal to avert the looming partial government shutdown.
HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS DURING A PARTIAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., speaking to reporters outside Speaker Mike Johnson’s, R-La., office, said that lawmakers are “very close to a deal” that could be voted on Friday.
But other representatives have reportedly expressed doubt about how quickly a third CR vote could come together. The initial 1,547-page bipartisan deal crumbled after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy criticized the spending bill that would have extended the government funding deadline until March 14.
“Whatever gets through the sausage maker in the next few hours probably doesn’t have a debt ceiling provision, probably is only a very short-term solution,” O’Leary pointed out. “But it does let Washington go home and open some presents and come back and fight again.”
As of Thursday, the U.S. national debt — which is a measure of what U.S. taxpayers were on the hook for to the nation’s creditors — had reached $36,167,604,149,955.61. That is down about $21.7 billion from the figure reported the previous day, according to the Treasury Department.
O’Leary argued there’s no better time than the New Year to include debt ceiling provisions and make decisions around reducing unnecessary spending earmarks.
“If there was ever a government that had a mandate to rein in spending and deal with the deficit, it’s this mandate. This is the next two years [when] Trump is close to supreme power on this. We should take advantage of it till the midterms happen,” he said.
“You can actually cut some spending. We haven’t done that for a while. Why not just rein in all these bills that we don’t need any more? If there’s anything still left in the Infrastructure Act, shut it down. CHIPS and Science, shut it down,” he noted. “This stuff is wasted government money.”
The business leader claimed he has “looked at these bills.” “I’m one of the few people you ever talk to that reads this stuff. There’s a lot of waste in there. Those things are telephone books,” said O’Leary. “And I was just looking for opportunity for small business. There isn’t any, and that’s 62% of job creation. So shut them down and save billions. What’s wrong with that?”
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Fox News’ Aubrie Spady and Elizabeth Elkind and FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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