‘Shutdown coming?’: Trump tweets
WASHINGTON: A government shutdown loomed on Friday in Washington as a short-term budget appeared stalled in the US Senate, while President Donald Trump accused opposition Democrats of stonewalling over immigration policy.
The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed a 30-day spending measure late on Thursday.
In the 100-seat Senate, where Trump’s conservative party has 51 members, the legislation requires a 60-vote supermajority, and even some Republicans in the upper chamber have vowed to vote against the so-called continuing resolution.
If the Senate fails to act by midnight, most federal agencies will be forced to halt non-essential operations. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be furloughed.
“Government Funding Bill passed last night in the House of Representatives,” Trump tweeted early on Friday. “Now Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate — but they want illegal immigration and weak borders. Shutdown coming? We need more Republican victories in 2018!”
Republicans control the Senate but with Senator John McCain undergoing cancer treatment at home in Arizona, they will need at least 10 Democrats to reach the 60 votes required to pass a spending bill. In addition to strong Democratic opposition, at least three Republican senators have said they will not back the continuing resolution in its current form.
As part of the budget fight, opposition Democrats have sought a solution to shield young immigrants, who were brought into the country illegally as children, from deportation.
The right-wing populist Trump in September cancelled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which has nearly 800,000 participants. Trump has said he wants legislation to restore their protected status, despite his hard-line stance on immigration policies.
The federal government last shut down in October 2013 for 16 days.
If the Senate approves, it would be the fourth 30-day continuing resolution passed in the last several months.
Government agencies were warning US employees of a possible federal shutdown as the politicians scrambled to pass legislation to keep the lights on in Washington.
President Donald Trump, answering reporters’ questions at the Pentagon, said on Thursday the US government “could very well” shut down and that would be harmful to the military.
When the government shuts down, which has only happened three times in a meaningful way since 1995, hundreds of thousands of “non-essential” federal workers may be put on furlough, while “essential” employees, dealing with public safety and national security, would keep working.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Christopher Sherwood said: “The Defense Department has to send out guidance on a potential shutdown prior to a shutdown. It will be sent out tomorrow, but could be sent today.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, asked about a possible shutdown while posing with Jordan’s foreign minister for photographs at the department’s headquarters, said: “We’re ready if that’s what happens. ... We hope not, but we’re ready.”
The Government Accountability Office, an in-house watchdog unit of Congress, in an internal memo to staff seen by Reuters, said it would begin shutting down if Congress did not approve a temporary funding bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR).
“In the absence of an extension of the CR, GAO would be without funding and will be required to begin shutting down its regular, ongoing operations on Monday,” the memo said.
Some financial regulators would get through a shutdown unscathed, although others might not. The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, do not rely on Congress to approve their funding. So they could keep operating during a shutdown.