McConnell offers bill that would avert government shutdown
WASHINGTON – Lawmakers edged closer Wednesday toward a temporary measure that would fund the government a few more weeks but deny President Donald Trump money for a border wall.
Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he’s pitching a bill that would fund the government through Feb. 8.
The measure would avert a government shutdown but put off funding decisions until early next year.
“We don’t want to end this year the way we began it, with another government shutdown,” McConnell said.
Nine federal departments and several smaller agencies – a quarter of the government – will run out of money
and shut down at midnight Friday unless Congress and the White House strike a deal.
Two days before the deadline, Democrats and Republicans have been at an impasse despite signals from the White House that it may back away from Trump’s demand for $5 billion to build a wall along the nation’s southern border.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Senate Democrats would support McConnell’s short-term funding bill, and he urged Trump to sign it.
House Democrats also would support the measure, said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
At the White House, presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump might sign a short-term spending bill and kick the dispute over wall funding into the new year, when Democrats will take leadership of the House of Representatives.
Trump tweeted that “one way or the other, we will win on the Wall!”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that Trump asked his Cabinet secretaries to look for other sources of money to help protect the border. She suggested that the administration is looking to Congress for ways to avoid a shutdown.
“We’ve laid out clearly what our parameters are with members of Congress,” Sanders said. “We want to know what they can pass. We want to know what they think they can actually get done. We’ve laid out what we’d like to see.
“In the meantime, we’re looking at other areas where we can draw money from to make sure that the president can actually protect our border and protect American citizens.”
A week ago, Trump boasted during an Oval Office meeting with Democratic leaders that he would be “proud” to shut down the government over border security and that he’d be willing to take the blame for any fallout.
On Capitol Hill, McConnell expressed confidence Tuesday that a shutdown would be avoided even though Democrats rejected a GOP proposal to end the impasse.
“We want to know what they can pass. ... We’ve laid out what we’d like to see.”
Sarah Sanders White House spokeswoman
“I think there’s certainly bipartisan support for avoiding a government shutdown,” he said. “We’re now trying to figure out the way forward.”
In an eleventh-hour attempt at compromise, McConnell proposed approving a spending bill that would include $1.6 billion for border fencing along with an additional $1 billion for immigration. Democrats described the additional funding as a “slush fund” and rejected the offer.
Pelosi said the GOP proposal would have allowed Trump to continue “his very wrong immigration policies.” “That won’t happen,” she said. Schumer said the GOP offer would not have been able to pass either the House or the Senate.
On the Senate floor Wednesday, McConnell accused Democrats of rejecting the offer out of “knee-jerk, partisan opposition” to Trump.
“It seems like political spite for the president may be winning out over sensible policy,” he said.
Nine federal departments wait for Congress to approve their budgets. They are Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security, Interior, State, Transportation, Treasury and Housing and Urban Development, as well as several smaller agencies.
Both of the government shutdowns during Trump’s presidency were ended by short-term funding bills.
In January, parts of the government shut down for three days after an impasse in the Senate over federal funding. The shutdown ended when the Senate passed a short-term spending measure.
Less than three weeks later, the government shut down for a second time after Congress failed to pass a spending bill to keep the agencies running. That shutdown ended after only six hours when lawmakers passed a six-week spending bill.