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Top House Dem: Government shutdown possible

Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat, said Wednesday that if the parties cannot find a compromise on how to fund the government by the March 4 deadline that a government shutdown would be “possible.”

“I guess anything’s possible,” Hoyer said when asked repeatedly if a government shutdown could happen this year. “The problem is once I say something’s possible, the headline tomorrow is ‘Hoyer says…[shutdown].’”

To put his words in perspective, however, Hoyer was merely being upfront about the political realities facing Congress, which must come to an agreement in the next few weeks. Hoyer made clear that his goal was to reach a deal with Republicans and that his caucus had no intention to provoke a shutdown.

“We don’t want to shut down the government,” he said. “We hope it’s not shut down.”

Unfortunately for Hoyer, Democratic Sens. Harry Reid and Charles Schumer. Most recently, the duo released a press release Friday criticizing Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson for saying that a shutdown was “a possibility.”

“We need to know: do House Republican leaders agree with Chairman Simpson that a shutdown may happen? Is it an acceptable possibility to them? They need to say so, one way or the other,” Schumer said in the joint statement. “It is time for the House Republicans to stop with the games and finally rule out a government shutdown once and for all. Stop being coy about it and take it off the table.”

Enter President Obama, who warned Tuesday against trying “to score political” points with talk of shutting down the government.

“I think people should be careful about being too loose in terms of talking about a government shutdown because this is not an abstraction,” Obama said. “The key here is for people to be practical and not to score political points.That’s true for all of us.”

Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.

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