The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
House passes bill to fund agencies amid shutdown
The House has approved a bill to fund the Treasury Department, the IRS and other agencies for the next year as part of a Democratic strategy to reopen the government on a piecemeal basis.
The Democratic-controlled House voted 240-188 on Wednesday to approve the funding bill, which also would reopen the Federal Communications Commission, the Small Business Administration and the federal judiciary, among other agencies.
Eight Republicans joined 232 Democrats to support the bill.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey says taxpayers rely on the IRS to assist them in filing taxes and financial planning but now “don’t have anyone they can turn to” for answers.
The bill is unlikely to move forward in the Republicancontrolled Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has dismissed it as political theater.
President Donald Trump stalked out of his negotiating meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday — “I said bye-bye,” he tweeted soon after — as efforts to end the 19-day partial government shutdown fell into deeper disarray over his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers now face lost paychecks on Friday.
The president is to visit the border in person on Thursday, but he has expressed his own doubts that his appearance and remarks will change any minds.
The brief session in the White House Situation Room ended almost as soon as it began.
Democrats said they asked Trump to re-open the government but he told them if he did they wouldn’t give him money for the wall that has been his signature promise since his presidential campaign two years ago.
Republicans said Trump posed a direct question to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: If he opened the government would she fund the wall? She said no.