President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday called on U.S. lawmakers to reject a stopgap bill to keep the government funded past Friday, raising the likelihood of a partial shutdown.
Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance called on lawmakers to pass a different temporary spending bill than the one unveiled on Tuesday, free from what they called “Democrat giveaways.” Trump also called on lawmakers to use the bill to address the nation’s debt ceiling, injecting a new element of complexity into the process.
That could complicate efforts to avert a shutdown that would disrupt everything from air travel to law enforcement days before the December 25 Christmas holiday. It would be the first government shutdown since one that extended through December 2018 into 2019, during Trump’s first four-year White House term.
Democrats currently control the Senate, and Democratic President Joe Biden remains in power until Trump takes office on January 20.
The current bill would fund government agencies at current levels and provide $100 billion for disaster relief and $10 billion in farm aid. It also includes a wide range of unrelated provisions, such as a pay raise for lawmakers and a crackdown on hidden hotel fees.
Trump and Vance said Congress should limit the bill to temporary spending and disaster relief — and also raise the national debt ceiling, a politically painful task that is scheduled to come to a head next year.
“If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration?” they said in the statement.
Congress’s next steps were unclear. Bipartisan agreement will be needed to pass any spending bill through the House of Representatives, where Republicans have a narrow majority, and the Senate.
The stopgap measure is needed because Congress has failed to pass regular spending legislation for the fiscal year that began on October 1. It does not cover benefit programs like Social Security, which continue automatically.
The U.S. government has spent more money than it has taken in for more than 20 years, as Democrats have expanded health programs and Republicans have cut taxes, and an aging population is projected to push up the cost of retirement and health programs in the years to come. Steadily mounting debt — currently $36 trillion — will force lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling at some point, either now or when borrowing authority runs out next year. Failure to act could shock bond markets with potentially severe economic consequences.
Trump’s comments came after his ally Elon Musk pressured Congress to reject the bill and said those who back it should be voted out of office.
The Tesla chief executive and world’s richest person, who spent more than $250 million to help Trump get elected, has been tasked by Trump to prune the federal budget.
Unless Congress acts, the federal government will run out of money to fund operations on Saturday. Negotiators on Tuesday agreed on a deal to extend funding through March 14.
House Republicans who helped negotiate the bill said Musk’s opposition complicated passage.
“There’s never an easy fix to anything around here,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole.
Democrats said Trump’s statement was a sign of chaos ahead.
“House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government. And hurt the working-class Americans they claim to support. You break the bipartisan agreement, you own the consequences that follow,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on social media.
Many Republicans already object to additional spending and unrelated provisions that have been added to the package.
Trump in the past has sometimes voiced support for government shutdowns, and the 2018-2019 one was the longest in U.S. history, lasting 34 days.
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