Budget

Analysis: Budget efforts an ‘absolute train wreck’

Budget expert Stephen Ryan explains the likelihood of a government shutdown as budget talks continue.

Federal News Network Staff

February 16, 2011 5:02 pm

< a min read

wfedstaff | June 3, 2015 9:15 pm

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One budget expert calls the current efforts to pass a budget an “absolute train wreck.”

Steve Ryan is the head of government strategies at McDermott Will & Emery law firm and formerly the general counsel to the Senate Committee on Government Affairs under Ohio Senator John Glenn.

He said the debates on spending are “more profound” than in 1995, the last government shutdown.

Newly elected Republican lawmakers are “largely unwilling to do any tax increase,” Ryan said. Meanwhile, the administration and Democratic lawmakers are not able to find spending cuts, he said.

“The ingredients of gridlock and failure are there,” Ryan said.

Ryan predicts “a lot of talk about brinkmanship.” But he said Republican leadership also recognizes that it was blamed for the ’95 shutdown.

“People will be more weary of that this time,” he said.