Potential Government Shutdown
On April 28th 2017, the United States’ government potentially will shut down. This Friday, the hundreth day of Donald Trump’s presidency, has been long anticipated.
The appropriations bill in US political parlance originally needed to be passed by both Houses of Congress and President Trump by Friday.
However, Democrats originally refused to pass any bill that has any proposals for money averted toward the building of a wall on the southern border of the US.
As the risk of this government shutdown is evident, a short term spending bill will be passed in order to give more time to debate provisions of the longer bill.
President Trump has removed his proposals for wall funding from the budget proposals. A whopping 1.5 billion was proposed to go to the wall in the spending bill. This is nothing compared to the estimated 22 billion dollars that the wall is estimated to cost.
This is an issue as many are evaluating the work President Trump has done within the first 100 days of his presidency. However, the President seems to have no choice but to appease the Democrats because only 52 out of 60 votes can come from Republican Senators.
Although President Trump has removed his provisions for the wall, he has not given up. He took to twitter to share that his efforts have not seized and not to listen to the media.
He claims to be open to funding later in the year, “Don't let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL. It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc." It is clear that the president is still adamant that a wall will be built.
This isn’t the only issue that Democrats will have within the budget. If the budget includes provisions that defund Planned Parenthood, an increase military spending or effect subsides within Obamacare. Junior Christina Abeltin said, “I can’t imagine either sides agreeing on these issues that they so strongly oppose.”
Contrary to common belief, government shutdowns happen more than one would expect. In 2013, during Barack Obama’s presidency, a government shutdown occurred where Republicans refused to pass the budget if it did not include the stripping of Obamacare.
If the budget is not passed, the federal government closes shop. During a government shutdown, many are out of work on unpaid leaves until it gets back in business.
The solution to this potential shutdown doesn’t require any bipartisan compromise revolving key issues because the issues aren’t being addressed within this short term bill. The appropriations committee supports the creation of a shorter spending bill that would potentially last until May 5.
All in all, no matter the deadline for the spending bill, these issues need to be addressed and needs to have partial bipartisan agreement because eight Democratic Senators will need to vote to pass it. The government shutdown in April 2017 may be averted, but who knows what’s to come for the potential May 5 deadline.