WASHINGTON \u2013 The ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee is “not optimistic” that Congress will come to a budget agreement before the continuing resolution ends on April 28.\u00a0
He also struck out at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who last week said he did not want President Donald Trump to work with Democrats on a new health care bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Do they have 218 Republican votes to do anything? Because Paul Ryan said the other day they ain\u2019t talking to us. I doubt it,” Smith said. “Because they like to vote no. It\u2019s what they do. We saw it on the healthcare bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I\u2019m not optimistic. I think we\u2019re going to go through another awkward week or two,” he continued. “As to how this plays out, this is unprecedented in my rather extensive legislative career.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Wednesday, the chiefs of staff for the military services testified to Congress that if the government operates under a CR for the rest of 2017, it would prove catastrophic \u2013 or in the words of Gen. Mark Milley, the Army chief, “will increase risk to the nation and ultimately result in dead Americans on a future battlefield.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The world is more dangerous by the day,” Milley said. “Pass a budget.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joe Gould in Washington contributed to this report<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Adam Smith is not expecting good news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":82235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,11,48],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3378],"class_list":["post-40242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-global","category-the-americas"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"PH2MOWHBCZHDJBXP4PL2DNKLOY","arc_canonical_url":"\/congress\/2017\/04\/06\/top-house-armed-services-democrat-pessimistic-about-budget-deal\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n