As the federal government shutdown stretches into its third week, U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann (R-Kan.) said the impasse is reaching historic proportions with no clear compromise on the horizon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the third-longest shutdown ever \u2014 and the longest full shutdown,\u201d he said Tuesday in an interview on KMAN\u2019s Morning News this week. \u201cDemocrats need to end this political stunt and reopen the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
The longest federal government shutdown in history was 35 days from Dec. 22, 2018 to Jan. 25, 2019 under the first Trump administration and a split Congress. The second longest shutdown prior to Tuesday was Dec. 16, 1995 to Jan. 5, 1996 under President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress. That lasted 21 days, which the current shutdown has now passed.<\/p>\n
Mann said he voted more than a month ago on a measure that passed the House but stalled in the Senate that would have kept the government funded through Nov. 21. Despite Republicans having majorities in both chambers, 60 votes are needed to advance any bill with a supermajority. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate.<\/p>\n
The shutdown continues to impact federal workers, including airport staff, border patrol agents and farm service employees, many of whom were furloughed or are working without pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president was able to shuffle some money around to get the troops paid and some tariff funds are keeping the WIC program afloat,\u201d Mann said. \u201cBut those dollars are going to run out and we need to reopen the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mann was in town Tuesday for a tour of Manhattan Regional Airport, where he visited with airport staff including air traffic controllers. He said about 25 Transportation Security Administration workers at the airport will soon be working without pay if Congress cannot reach a deal to end the shutdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone would agree that the right thing for the country is to fund the government and pay people that are actually doing the jobs that they\u2019re called to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With holidays just weeks away, Mann said he doesn\u2019t anticipate delays or closures will impact Manhattan\u2019s airport, as he said TSA \u201chas to continue to show up,\u201d despite the shutdown. Mann said the longer the shutdown goes brings higher risk of delays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hearing reports at the Atlanta airport that there are delays where not as many folks are coming in,\u201d he said. \u201cThere might be some air traffic issues and concerns and other parts of the country, but I don\u2019t anticipate that in Kansas.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the shutdown, Mann said the U.S. Department of Agriculture continues to monitor the potential threat of New World Screwworm on the U.S. livestock industry.<\/p>\n
The parasitic fly can devastate livestock populations and has done so in parts of Mexico and Central America. While the pest hasn\u2019t crossed into the United States, Mann said USDA remains aggressive in keeping it from reaching the border.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe larvae can infect cattle and be very detrimental,\u201d Mann said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen outbreaks decades ago, but we were able to eradicate them \u2014 and we have to make sure it stays that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the USDA uses an established method to control the insect\u2019s spread: breeding and releasing millions of sterile flies that mate with infected ones, stopping reproduction and eliminating the population over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo far, we\u2019ve released about 3 billion sterile flies,\u201d Mann said. \u201cThere are even new production facilities being built to ramp that up further. We\u2019re watching closely to make sure it doesn\u2019t get into our country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the federal government shutdown stretches into its third week, U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann (R-Kan.) said the impasse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[6402,609,10474,75,84,83,9,24,63,87,3435,10475,901],"class_list":["post-13968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-federal-government-of-the-united-states","tag-government","tag-government-shutdowns-in-the-united-states","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-politics-of-the-united-states","tag-presidencies-of-the-united-states","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}