Pelosi Aide: Gov't Shutdown Likely

Speaking at a regular meeting of Democrats, a senior aide to Rep. Nancy Pelosi said that the odds are in favor of a government shutdown if Republicans and Democrats can't agree on a federal budget. The remark became the focus of the meeting, with other aides asking questions about how the looming shutdown could affect their work and how it would be handled. Aides who attended said that the remark was unprompted and did not appear to have been an intentional effort to ratchet up tension among Democratic staffers. Pelosi herself said that if a shutdown happens, it will fall squarely on Republicans' shoulders. "It’s really a failure to say we have taken the leadership of the Congress of the United States and the first thing we're going to do is shut down the government to the detriment of our people, to our security, and to our country’s future," she told reporters.