House funds wall, risking a shutdown
WASHINGTON — House Republicans pushed the federal government Thursday to the brink of a shutdown over money for President Donald Trump’s promised wall along the border with Mexico.
Late Thursday, the House voted for a bill that would fund the government for seven weeks and provide $5 billion for the border wall, a measure that stands no chance of getting through the Senate with a deadline of 12:01 a.m. Saturday looming.
Earlier Thursday, Republicans had appeared ready to approve a Senatepassed bill that would have
funded the government through Feb. 8 without the border wall. That bill would have marked a big defeat for Trump on his top campaign issue.
Within hours, however, conservative House Republicans, backed by Trump, had rallied the rank and file to rise up and fight for the border wall, albeit with no clear path toward victory.
The rebellion left uncertain the fate of a quarter of the federal government and paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal workers days before Christmas. It represented a final reprise of the drama that came to define the House GOP’S eight-year reign in the majority.
“We’re going out with a bang” said retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-lehtinen, R-fla., with a fist pump into the air. “With the chaos and the uncertainty and the drama that I have come to know and expect out of Congress. To expect otherwise is just not rational. Just like to expect anything other than unpredictability from President Trump is foolish.”
In the case of the pending spending bill, Republicans were driven by promises they made to their voters and to the president: They told their voters that they backed Trump on the wall, and they told the president they would make the push to fund it after the midterm elections.
The bill is also the last piece of major legislation to get through Congress before Republicans hand control of the House to Democrats in January — and therefore, the last opportunity to get the wall funded by Congress and U.S. taxpayers.
Trump has repeatedly promised that Mexico will pay for the wall.
Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., said, “If we miss this opportunity, to think somehow on Feb. 8 we’ll be in a better position with more leverage is naive at best. Speaker Pelosi is not going to support this, and we’re going to have less Republican votes.” He added that “this is one of those unfinished things that we need to do.”
Adding to the uncertainty in the House was the absence of many defeated or retiring members. Of the 435 members, 31 didn’t show up for Thursday evening’s vote — 11 Republicans and 20 Democrats.
Trump has deepened the sense of chaos by often switching his positions with little or no warning. The president last week said he would be “proud” to shut down the government over the wall. Then the White House backed off that position, saying that other agencies would fund the wall. That reassurance led the Senate to vote unanimously to approve a spending bill without money for the wall.
On Thursday, however, after criticism from conservative media and members of Congress, Trump said he would not sign the Senate bill.
“I’ve made my position very clear: Any measure that funds the government must include border security,” Trump said as he signed an unrelated farm bill at the White House. He called protecting and defending the country a “sacred obligation,” adding, “We have no choice.”