After the House of Representatives garnered enough Republican votes to pass a short-term extension of government spending, the responsibility shifted Friday to the Senate to avoid a possible shutdown of some parts of the federal government structure.
The Senate Democrats have made it categorically clear they won’t be lending their votes to a bill that fails to address their concerns on government spending, immigration and other pertinent issues.
President Trump, gearing up to mark his one year anniversary on the job, took to Twitter taking aim at Senate Democrats in a tweet ”Government Funding Bill past last night in the House of Representatives. Now Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate – but they want illegal immigration and weak borders. Shutdown coming? We need more Republican victories in 2018!”.
Nine Senate Democrats who voted early to a spending measure back in December, opposed to the latest proposed four-week extension, they will be joining a batch of some 30 other colleagues of their party and at least 2 Republicans. The bill falls short of the 60 votes required to pass in the Senate.
Republicans have been dismissive of claims of their failures to govern, seize the opportunity to lay blames on the footsteps of their Democratic rivals, painting them as the unwilling to compromise and prevent critical government operations from functioning. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday ”My Democratic colleagues’ demands on illegal immigration, at the behest of their far-left base, have crowded out all other important business, and now they are threatening to crowd out the needs of veterans, military families, opioid treatment centers and every other American who relies on the federal government- all over illegal immigration.”
In a joint statement issued by Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Virginia Democrats representing tens of thousands of federal employees who risk being affected by government shutdown emphasised they couldn’t support a bill without a relief package for DACA dreamers, disaster funding, funds for the treatment of opioids mirroring the demands of Democratic leadership.
As the deadline approaches, the possibility of a government shutdown is quite obvious. The Trump administration is drafting plans to keep national monuments and parks open to blunt public outrage in case of a shutdown. Though the military will not cease to operate, troops will not cash their checks unless Congress specifically authorizes it.
The last US government shutdown lasted 16 days in 2013, Republicans unsuccessfully forced changes to the Affordable Care Act commonly referred to Obamacare.
Neba Benson,
BaretaNews Foreign Correspondent/Analyst
