Let me get this straight. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are somehow ready to shut down operations of the federal government over how much money? $1.6 billion in budget cuts?
Yep, that's where we are right now in your United States Congress.
Congress is supposed to be on break this week, but instead, there is the possibility that the House and Senate will remain in gridlock - not even $2 billion apart - over a bill to keep the government running and to fund federal disaster relief programs.
Last Friday, the Senate defeated a House-passed plan for a temporary budget plan that would run until November 18, a measure that also has $3.65 billion in extra disaster money for FEMA.
What Senate Democrats want is to get rid of $1.6 billion in budget cuts in that bill - they have given up adding about $3.3 billion more in money for FEMA, to bring disaster aid to almost $7 billion.
The House passed their bill in the early hours of Friday morning and then after some business later in the day, lawmakers went home until Monday October 3.
In other words, they said to the Senate, "Take our bill or it's your fault for shutting down the government."
Democrats obviously don't like that, as they point the finger of blame back at the GOP, and accuse them of recklessly trying to shut down the government as of this coming Friday.
Meanwhile, FEMA supposedly will run out of disaster money as early as tomorrow.
So, Senate Democrats this evening will force a procedural vote on their plan to add in the extra FEMA money and do away with those GOP budget cuts.
If that passes the Senate, there is no guarantee that House members will return to work this week to vote on that bill.
There is also no guarantee that Democrats can muster 60 votes to force action on their bill. And if they are short on votes - then the only way out may be for the Senate to just accept the House bill and move on.
We'll see what happens on Monday evening.
One way this could have been avoided was for the Congress to approve the federal budget on time. The House several months ago approved the FEMA budget, but that bill has not been considered by the Senate floor.
That allows me the chance to remind you, the voter, that the Congress has not approved the federal budget on time since 1994.
As for why the Congress would be on break this week, in past years, lawmakers have tried to break up a work week to work around the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, but it usually doesn't work. So this year, the House and Senate decided that instead of working Monday and Tuesday - and then having members leave town - it would be better to take the whole week off.
Will the government shutdown at midnight Friday night? Right now, nobody really knows.
