Letter from Congressman Dan Lungren

Today is baseball’s opening day, but with the delayed negotiations, repeated stop-gap measures, and media attention, you’d think that setting government spending levels were America’s favorite pastime.  The second short-term continuing resolution (CR) expires next Friday, 49 days after the House passed a long-term CR that reduces government spending by $61 billion.  To date, the Senate has neglected to act on this legislation or pass its own spending bill.
The Senate’s inaction and failure to produce a plan has twice threatened a shutdown of the government.  Some of us have held out hope that maybe the third time is the charm and the Senate would be willing to take positive action to fund the government at reduced levels so that we can move on to other important matters before the nation. 
Unfortunately, we received indications earlier this week that the Senate still is not ready to play ball.  Reporters overheard one of the Senate’s top leaders giving what news outlets called “marching orders” to his colleagues.  These talking points included instructions to label any spending reductions proposed by the House as extreme.  If the Senate believes that any spending reduction is unreasonable, no wonder we find ourselves at an impasse.  The American people and the House do not want to continue the status quo, a suggestion we cannot take seriously when our debt consumes 62 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 
Hopefully the Senate will reconsider as we try to avoid a government shutdown for the third time in as many months.  Because as all Americans know, “it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out at the old ball game.”  And in this game, no one wins if the Senate strikes out looking. 
Sincerely,
Daniel E. Lungren
Member of Congress