In advance of a Friday government funding deadline, Democratic Maine Congressman Jared Golden called for a bipartisan Congressional coalition to “sideline hardliners” who he says want a government shutdown.
Rep. Golden’s Tuesday statement came on the heels of Congressional leadership of both parties convening at the White House to meet with President Joe Biden regarding spending negotiations.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters outside the White House following the Tuesday meeting that it was “productive and intense.”
“We made it so clear that we can’t have the shutdown because it hurts so many people in so many different ways,” Sen. Schumer said, pressing the issue of sending more U.S. tax dollars to Ukraine.
Schumer also told reporters that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “said unequivocally he wants to avoid a government shutdown.”
Earlier this month the Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid package with assistance to Ukraine and Israel, which was quickly denounced by the Republican House Speaker as “dead on arrival.”
[RELATED: ‘Dead on Arrival:’ Senate Border and Foreign Aid Package Faces Immediate Backlash…]
Despite his opposition to the legislative package passed by the Senate, Johnson said Tuesday that he is “very optimistic” about avoiding a shutdown.
“We have been working in good faith around the clock every single day for months and weeks, and over the last several days, quite literally around the clock to get that job done. We’re very optimistic,” Johnson said. “We believe that we can get to agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown, that’s our first responsibility.”
Johnson told reporters the House “actively pursuing and investigating all the various options” for passing Ukraine aid, but that “the first priority of the country is our border.”
Golden, co-chair of the moderate “Blue Dog” Democrat Coalition, said in his Tuesday statement that it was “encouraging to hear reports that Speaker Johnson wants to avoid a government shutdown.”
[RELATED: Jared Golden Signs Letter Urging Biden Admin to Send More Weapons to Ukraine…]
“With the current House majority even narrower than it was when budget negotiations started last year, the only path forward remains the same: a strong coalition of Democrats and Republicans must sideline hardliners who want to shut down the government and enact the funding levels that the vast majority of Congress already voted to support last May,” Golden said.
The 2nd District Congressman has previously criticized his Republican counterparts as using the issue of border security as a “campaign tool,” and even went so far as to accuse Speaker Johnson of siding with Vladimir Putin for his “unwillingness to allow a vote on aid for Ukraine.”
Golden, alongside a bipartisan group of his House colleagues are pushing for their own compromise border security and foreign aid package bill, the “Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act.”
The bill proposes $66 billion in defense spending to support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, alongside the implementation of a handful of border security measures similar to the Trump-era policies of “Remain in Mexico” and Title 42 authority to curb the migration crisis.
We the People must sideline traitorous globalist shills like Golden, Pingree, King and Collins, or watch our progeny suffer a Maoist tyranny
Ever notice that bipartisan to Democrats means a few Rinos and 210 Democrats?