Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told Newsmax Thursday that Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., singlehandedly created the looming government shutdown on Capitol Hill by failing to do his job last year. Any shutdown, he said, will be the fault of Senate Democrats if they don’t vote to approve the continuing resolution to fund the government.

“The reason it’s a CR is because Chuck Schumer, Sen. Schumer, refused to put one single appropriations bill, not one bill, on the floor last year,” Hoeven told Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.” “So of course we’re in this situation. He forced it. And actually, in this continuing resolution, we do a number of things. One, for the first time in a long time, we actually reduce spending. That’s important to get after the debt and deficit. We actually increased spending though for our military and provide more flexibility.

“So, we’ve done a number of things that I think are positive, and we’ve done the best we can, given what Sen. Schumer created, which was his refusal to bring the appropriations bills to the floor, even though – and I’m on the Appropriations Committee – we passed all the bills,” he said. “We were ready to go, and he wouldn’t do it and now he laments the situation? Look, I think they’re going to have to vote for it or the shutdown is going to be right square on Senate Democrats.”

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