White House officials are raising their expectations that the government will partially shut down on Friday as lawmakers scramble to find votes for a short-term spending deal that will fund the government past midnight, budget director Mick Mulvaney said.
“We were operating under a sort of 30 percent [likelihood of a] shutdown up until yesterday, I think it’s ratcheted up now,” Mulvaney told reporters at the White House on Friday. “We’ve had our meeting just about a half an hour ago, a teleconference with a bunch of agencies to tell them to start to implement their lapse plan, the next step in preparing for a lapse in funding, that’s what we call a shutdown, the formal name of it. I guess the bottom line is we’re working to make sure there is no shutdown but if the Senate or the House can’t get together to finalize a deal we’ll be ready.”
