In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Anderson Cooper 360, Democratic Congressman — and a true legend and hero of the civil rights movement — Elijah Cummings discussed the Federal government shutdown with the show’s host. Cummings made it clear that he believes Speaker of the House John Boehner has the votes to pass a clean continuing resolution with no strings attached to Obamacare, but for whatever reason, Boehner’s not willing to do that.
Cooper asked Cummings if he felt that the President declaring he was unwilling to negotiate with Republicans as being part of the problem. Cummings response was brief but succinct. “Negotiate over what? See, that’s the question,” replied Cummings. He explained that House Republicans are basically asking for a ransom to do their jobs as prescribed in the Constitution. “Now they say, ‘We’re going to threaten the credit worthiness of The United States of America and possibly the world economy’ to do something that we’re supposed to do,” Cummings said.
Cummings and other Democrats have taken to reminding the public that the entire job of the Congress is to pass a budget and set spending amounts, which the Republicans are now refusing to do unless they can exact a political price from the Democrats for doing so.
With just mere days until we hit the debt ceiling, both sides will be pushing their messages harder than ever. Watch the clip of Cumming’s interview below.
