Republicans in the House of Representatives are looking to push a stop-gap funding bill that would delay the finalization of the government budget until next year. This would give them and President-elect Donald J. Trump a greater say over how tax dollars will be spent during the first half of his second term.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) says that the clock has essentially run out on finishing the budget this year. “We’re running out of clock. December 20 is the deadline. We’re still hopeful that we might be able to get that done but, if not, we’ll have a temporary measure, I think that would go into the first part of next year and allow us the necessary time to get this done,” he said during a televised interview on Sunday. He continued: “That would be, ultimately a good move because the country would benefit from it—because then you’d have Republican control, and we’d have a little more say in what those those spending bills are.”
UNDERMINING TRUMP.
Pushing the finalization of government spending into early next year would give a higher degree of control to not just the Republican House majority but also the new Republican Senate majority and President-elect Trump. However, not all Republicans are on board with delaying the funding legislation.
“I would like to have a situation clear the deck so that we don’t have to deal with this next year,” argues Senator John Boozman (R-AR), contending that pushing the vote on funding to next year would interfere with the confirmation of Trump’s cabinet appointees: “With a new administration coming in… confirmations are going take a lot of time. So we’ll have that to deal with. And then we should be actually working on the next year’s appropriations.”
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are demanding a full-year funding bill be taken up before the December 20 deadline. Should such legislation pass, it could tie President-elect Trump’s hands in terms of federal spending for much of the first half of his second term.
show less
