The government needs to come up with spending bills by Friday or the government will shut down. Border wall funding has halted the talks as disagreements between the Democrats and President Donald Trump continue.
Trump wants $5 billion, but the Democrats will not budge from their demand of only $1.6 billion.
From The Washington Examiner:
Democrats want to stick to the $1.6 billion for border security allocated in a bipartisan Homeland Security appropriations bill, which includes repairs to fencing, levees, and more money for tech. Some congressional Republicans appear ready to pass the larger government funding package, according to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., but Trump isn’t.“Essentially we have agreement on what needs to be done, and it is simply the wall that is the major and principle item that is holding up full agreement,” Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday. “I’m hopeful in the next week or so that that will be resolved one way or another.”
A continuing resolution will probably go through Congress on Thursday, but if Trump doesn’t sign it, the government will have a partial shut down.
Roll Call explained that Trump’s administration “sent up to Capitol Hill a request to add $33 billion in fiscal 2017 funds to spending bills under negotiation, mostly for defense but also for border protection” and that same “request asked Congress to cut $18 billion from other nondefense discretionary accounts, which lawmakers rejected.”
In April, the administration then asked Congress “to add fiscal 2019 funds to its initial budget in keeping with the bipartisan budget deal reached in February.”
The Democrats support is needed because even some Republicans have balked at the $5 billion price tag. From Roll Call:
Some GOP appropriators are finding it difficult to back the full $5 billion request without seeing a detailed justification. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said last week she supports the $1.6 billion that senators included in their bipartisan Homeland measure. She said she doesn’t know why $5 billion is needed for the fiscal year that ends next September.“The administration asked for [$]1.6 [billion]; we gave them [$]1.6 [billion] and they upped the ante,” she said.“It’s irresponsible what he’s doing, and it’s holding all the other bills hostage, and he hasn’t even given us the information we need on the border wall,” added New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, Murkowski’s Democratic counterpart on the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee. That fiscal 2019 measure is mired in a conference committee on four spending bills that got held back from finalizing an agreement before lawmakers recessed for the final stretch of the midterm campaign.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, “said Republicans are now pushing for $2.5 billion in wall funding this year, combined with an additional $2.5 billion to be allocated next year.” However, the bill doesn’t include anything that would give Democrats a second thought “like a long-term extension of the Violence Against Women Act or the chance to vote on a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller.”
Trump tweeted yesterday that the wall will pay “for itself in two months.”
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