WASHINGTON – Democratic leaders of the US Congress announced Monday a plan to vote on a new stopgap spending bill to end the government shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security through February 8, when they take control of the lower house, without complying with President Donald Trump’s demands for funding a wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico.
The bill would fund six government departments currently furloughed since the shutdown went into effect Dec. 21. The Department of Homeland Security, though, would receive its existing $1.3 billion for border security, short of the $5 billion Trump asked for.
In a statement, House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
The proposal of the democrats will have little route unless Trump abdicates of its requests on the wall and authorizes this new provisional budget.
“As President Trump drags the nation into the second week of the administrative closure without offering any plan that can be approved in both houses of Congress, the Democrats are taking steps to get our country out of this mess,” Schumer and Pelosi said.
According to the statement, the proposal consists of six bills to finance the entire year 2019 and one that grants funds to National Security until February 8.
“If the leader (Senate Republican, Mitch) McConnell and the Senate Republicans refuse to support the first bill, then they are accomplices of President Trump to continue the shutdown,” the Democrats said
The DHS funding has been central to the ongoing government shutdown impasse between the White House and Congress, with 800,000 federal government employees now entering their second week of the shutdown.
Trump doubled down on his demands on New Year’s Eve, again attempting to blame Democrats for the shutdown even though he rejected the previous bills passed by the House and Senate to offer short-term funding which did not include his border wall construction.
It’s unclear if Trump would accept the House Democratic proposal.
