Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday he can’t rule out a government shutdown if Congress is unable to strike a deal on a spending bill — but doubts it’ll come to that.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Steven Mnuchin said Congress has until Friday to strike a deal without triggering a shutdown just two days before Christmas.
"I can’t rule it out, but I can't imagine it occurring," Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin said if there’s no deal by Friday, Congress would have to pass a "short term extension" into January in order to gain time to come to an agreement.
"I would expect that both the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, understand that if they can't agree on this, they need to have another short term extension to move this to January. We can't have a government shutdown in front of Christmas," he added.
"I just can't imagine sending government workers home for Christmas. I hope Congress gets this done," he added, declining to comment on the impact a shutdown would have.
At stake is a full year of defense funding as well as financing short-term fixes for other programs — and Republicans will need the support of all GOP senators and at least eight Democrats to pass a measure through the upper chamber, The Hill noted.
Democrats are demanding any increase in defense funding is matched by an equal increase in nondefense funding.
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