The Democratic Divide: Would a Shutdown Have Helped or Hurt Trump?
The party’s split over supporting a spending extension to avert a lapse in government funding boiled down to a practical question of how much power the president has in a shutdown.
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The party’s split over supporting a spending extension to avert a lapse in government funding boiled down to a practical question of how much power the president has in a shutdown.
Privately, many Senate Democrats conceded that their leader was doing his job by protecting his members from a tough vote and making a politically painful decision. But the backlash from his party was intense.
An afternoon vote was expected to clear the way for a Republican-written bill to keep government funding flowing past midnight after the top Senate Democrat said he would not block it.
By cutting federal employees, the Trump administration may increase its reliance on firms that take in billions through government contracts.
The stopgap measure the G.O.P. is pushing to avert a government shutdown omits billions of dollars in member-requested projects, another way in which Congress has ceded its power on federal spending.
The top Senate Democrat said his members were not ready to provide the votes to allow the Republican-written stopgap spending measure to pass ahead of a March 14 midnight deadline.
On Tuesday, President Trump sent markets into another tailspin by announcing additional tariffs on Canada, suggesting a falling stock market is no longer the bulwark investors had hoped.
Republicans were pressing rank-and-file lawmakers to fall in line behind a stopgap measure that would mostly keep government funding at current levels through September.
A short-term spending bill, a 10-year budget plan and Musk’s cost-cutting team are all progressing at once.
Democrats decried the measure as a White House power grab, leaving it unclear whether the legislation could pass.