US braced to start the week with shutdown
Print Edition
PRESIDENT Donald Trump launched a fresh attack on his American opponents ahead of a new effort in the bitterly divided United States Congress to end a budget impasse before hundreds of thousands of federal workers are forced to start the workweek at home without pay.
The impact of the shutdown that began at midnight Friday has been largely limited so far, closing sites like New York’s Statue of Liberty, but the effect will start to become acute if the stalemate runs into today.
Republicans and Democrats have traded bitter recriminations over who is to blame for the failure to pass a stop-gap funding measure by a January 20 deadline, a year to the day since Trump took office as US president.
“Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
He also encouraged the Senate’s Republican leaders to invoke a procedural maneuver known as the “nuclear option” to change the chamber’s rules to allow passage of a budget by a simple majority of 51 votes to end the shutdown. Senate leaders have been wary of such a move in the past, as it could come back to haunt them the next time the other party holds a majority.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney accused some Democrats of wanting to “deny the president sort of the victory lap of the anniversary of his inauguration” — echoing a complaint Trump made on Twitter the day before.”
“There’s other Democrats who want to see the president give the State of the Union during a shutdown,” Mulvaney said on Fox, referring to the nationally televised address Trump is scheduled to deliver on January 30. However, White House legislative director Marc Short said progress is being made, and Mulvaney also said there is a chance to have the government open before the workweek begins this morning.
Late on Saturday, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell set a key vote for a funding measure for 1am today, with both houses of Congress set to reconvene yesterday.
At the heart of the dispute is the thorny issue of undocumented immigration.
Democrats have accused Republicans of poisoning chances of a deal and pandering to Trump’s populist base by refusing to fund a program that protects an estimated 700,000 “Dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who arrived as children — from deportation.
Trump, in return, has said Democrats are “far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants.”
The shutdown’s effects meanwhile are set to intensify.
Essential federal services and military activity are continuing, but even active-duty troops will not be paid until a deal is reached to reopen the US government.
There have been four government shutdowns since 1990, with the last one in 2013.
Congress reconvened for a rare Saturday session, where leaders of both sides were meant to hammer out their differences to prevent the shutdown from stretching into today. Instead, they traded accusations of responsibility for the shutdown.
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