Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump rejects funding plan
Legislation due today in House, Pelosi says
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump rejected a plan from Democrats on Wednesday to reopen key parts of the federal government, as a meeting of the U.S.’ top political leaders ended with few signs of progress toward ending the partial shutdown.
The president is demanding more than $5 billion to build new walls along the U.S.-Mexico border, but Democrats held fast to their opposition Wednesday. House Democrats plan to advance legislation that would reopen key parts of the government but provide Trump no new money for a wall — one of their first acts after taking control of the chamber today.
But Trump told congressional leaders that he would
not sign the measure, said incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
“The president’s not going to sign it. … Now’s the time to come together, find common ground and solve this problem,” McCarthy said. “I didn’t find the Democrats were wanting to negotiate today.”
After the White House meeting ended with no resolution, Trump summoned congressional leaders back to the White House for more discussions Friday. But neither side offered any indication a deal was within reach, suggesting the partial shutdown could continue indefinitely. Trump said ahead of Wednesday’s session with the congressional leaders that the partial shutdown will last “as long as it takes” to get the funding he wants.
“Could be a long time, or it could be quickly,” Trump said of resolving the shutdown. “It’s too important a subject to walk away from.”
The shutdown began Dec. 22, and its impact is spreading, particularly in the Washington region. The Smithsonian Institution closed its museums and the National Zoo on Wednesday. Trash and human waste are piling up at national parks.
The District of Columbia has stopped issuing marriage licenses because of cutbacks to its funding, and the Internal Revenue Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, and a number of other agencies have suspended or scaled back a range of services for
families and businesses.
All sides are now locked in a political stalemate, as Republicans control the Senate and the White House while Democrats have seized the House.
Democrats said they asked Trump directly during Wednesday’s private meeting held in the Situation Room why he wouldn’t consider their package of bills. One measure would open most of the shuttered government departments at funding levels already agreed to by all sides. The other would provide temporary funding for Homeland Security, through Feb. 8, allowing talks to continue over border security.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, Give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown,’” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said afterward. “He could not give a good answer.”
Added Schumer, “We would hope they would reconsider.”
“We have given the Republicans a chance to take ‘yes’ for an answer,” incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said after the meeting.
Pelosi said Tuesday that Democrats would take action to “end the Trump Shutdown” by passing legislation today to reopen government.
“Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the President’s third shutdown of his term,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues.
But the Republican-led Senate appears unlikely to consider the Democratic funding bills. A spokesman
for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Republicans would not take action without Trump’s backing.
Trump insisted Wednesday that Congress give him $5.6 billion, money that he wants for the construction of 200 miles of wall along the Mexico border.
Democrats have responded to Trump’s demands by flatly rejecting any funding for a border wall, leading to complaints about intransigence from the White House.
On Wednesday, Trump also rejected his own administration’s offer to accept $2.5 billion for the wall. That offer was made when Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials met with Schumer at the start of the shutdown.
“Somebody said 2.5 [billion dollars],” Trump said to reporters. “No. Look, this is national security we’re talking about.”
Trump compared the southern border to “a sieve” that allows criminals and drugs to enter the country and facilitates human trafficking.
“The United States needs a physical barrier,” the president said.
Trump said on Wednesday that the wall would be paid for under a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. The trade deal has not been approved by Congress, and even if it is approved, there are no provisions in it that create new funding for a wall on the U.S. border.
He also said in a Twitter post that “Much of the Wall has already been fully renovated or built.” Some wall and fencing has been replaced
during the Trump administration, but there are few new wall barriers that have been established along the 2,000-mile border.
HOUSE PLANS
Despite the far-reaching impacts of the shutdown, much of the federal government has not been touched. Major agencies like the Pentagon and the Health and Human Services Department have already been funded through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, thanks to spending bills passed by Congress earlier last year.
House Democrats today plan to pass two bills: one to fund the Homeland Security department at current levels through Feb. 8, which would continue $1.3 billion in border barrier funding; and the other to fund the rest of the government through Sept. 30, at levels negotiated on a bipartisan basis in the Senate.
That would make it possible for McConnell to send Trump a bill to reopen most of the government, while setting aside the fight over the wall.
The last time Schumer and Pelosi met Trump at the White House, on Dec. 11, Trump claimed he would be “proud” to shut down the government over the wall, and insisted he would take ownership of any shutdown. Since the partial shutdown began on Dec. 22, though, Trump has sought to brand it the “Schumer Shutdown.”
Democrats have signaled a willingness to approve $1.3 billion in funds for border security in an extension of existing spending levels, a portion of which can be used to replace and repair existing
sections of wall and fencing. But they have drawn the line at the use of any taxpayer money for the erection of a new wall.
The agencies that are unfunded and in shutdown mode include the Homeland Security Department that pays for the wall, as well as the Agriculture, Justice, Interior, Transportation, State and Housing departments. NASA is also partially shut down, along with the National Park Service and an array of smaller agencies.
Some 800,000 federal workers are affected, including around 350,000 who have been furloughed while the rest stay on the job wondering whether they will end up getting paid. In past shutdowns, Congress has approved retroactive pay once the impasse has been resolved. But the government contractors who are affected may never recoup their lost paychecks.
As the shutdown nears the two-week mark, some lawmakers have grown increasingly anxious about its impact on their constituents, including federal workers who are not receiving pay while their agencies are denied funding.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., published an opinion piece in The Washington Post suggesting three ways out: Grant the president the $1.6 billion for border security that he requested, without wall funding, plus an additional $1 billion for security at ports of entry; approve a bipartisan bill linking wall funding with protection for young immigrants brought illegally to the country as children; or resurrect the 2013 comprehensive immigration overhaul that included huge increases in border security measures, sweeping changes to immigration law and a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants.
“This morning I requested that my pay be withheld until the shutdown is over,” Rep.elect Mikie Sherill, D-N.J., said Wednesday on Twitter, where she posted a letter to the chief administrative officer of the House making official her request.
She noted that 800,000 federal workers are not receiving paychecks during the partial shutdown, including thousands in her state. “I came here to govern, not engage in partisan politics at the expense of hardworking Americans,” Sherill said.
Rep.-elect Max Rose, D-N.Y., said he would donate his salary for the duration of the shutdown to a local Staten Island charity, likely a nonprofit counseling charity focused on treating addiction and substance abuse.
He said any talk of a broader immigration compromise should wait until the government re opens.
“We’re dealing with people’s lives here,” he said in an interview Monday.
The current shutdown is the longest since a 16-day partial shutdown in 2013 over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Information for this article was contributed by Damian Paletta and Erica Werner of The Washington Post; by Lisa Mascaro, Catherine Lucey, Laurie Kellman, Kevin Freking and Jill Colvin of The Associated Press; and by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael Tackett of The New York Times.