AOC condemns House GOP over playing ‘political football’ on spending: ‘It’s not fair’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) accused House Republicans of playing “political football” on government spending, arguing it only hurts regular federal workers and the economy.

Ocasio-Cortez discussed how the House of Representatives was able to avoid a government shutdown thanks to two continuing resolutions, one passed in September and the other earlier this month, but that the threat of a shutdown will reemerge in January once the stopgap expires.

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“So, we will be encountering this issue once again in January. … We have thousands of federal workers in our community. And these are folks that make everyday wages just like anybody else. Who can’t, you know, most of us are living paycheck to paycheck, and the idea of missing a paycheck, it means missing a car payment, means missing rent, a mortgage, whatever that may be. And it’s just not fair. It’s not right,” the New York Democrat said during a telephone town hall on Monday.

“For everyday people to get caught up in the political football of a government shutdown. And we’ve made that very, very clear to our Republican counterparts in our hope that we will be able to secure some kind of extension again in January,” she added.

Later in the town hall, after a constituent asked Ocasio-Cortez about government funding, she accused Republicans of looking to “score political points” while holding the “economy hostage.” The House lawmaker also said that Democrats do not hold “the debt limit hostage” because she claims it is “wrong.”

“They use the threat of this as leverage to try to extract concessions from the president at a given point in time. And so we saw that happen with the debt limit earlier this year. Now, when Democrats are in charge, even when Trump was president, when Democrats had the House, we never held the debt limit hostage because it’s wrong. It’s the wrong thing to do,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It hurts people, and it hurts our whole country. It threatens the entire U.S. economy. It doesn’t matter if you’re red or blue or purple or whatever. It hurts everybody to hold the debt limit hostage. It hurts the entire country. It hurts everybody when we hold government shutdowns hostage, and so that’s why Democrats don’t do it.”

“Even if you know you have a Republican president, and you know people think you can kind of squeeze something out. It’s just not worth hurting everyday people to score a political point. Now the current Republican majority has made a different calculation. And so what they did is hold the debt limit hostage earlier this year. And what they got by holding the entire U.S. economy hostage, they extracted certain things from Biden — who does not want to see everyday people get hurt,” she added.

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The current continuing resolution in place funds the federal government at fiscal 2023 levels through Jan. 19, with funding for some agencies expiring on that date and others expiring two weeks after.

House Republicans are optimistic they will be able to pass all 12 appropriations bills for fiscal 2024 and not need another continuing resolution, but passing the remaining spending bills will be an uphill battle in the House and Senate.