Politics

Congressional Negotiators Prepare Offer to Prevent Government Shutdown

On Monday, Congressional negotiators came to an “agreement in principle” on a spending bill to prevent another government shutdown from occurring Friday that includes an offer of $1.375 billion for 55 miles of new border fencing to satisfy President Trump’s demand for a border wall.

Once the text of the actual spending bill is complete, the House and the Senate will have to approve the bill and give it to the president by February 15th; otherwise, another government shutdown will take place. If another government shutdown takes place, thousands of federal workers will be at risk once again, and lawmakers will have to rely on another stopgap funding bill. However, it remains unclear whether President Trump will sign the legislation.

On January 25th, President Trump agreed to reopen the federal government for three weeks, ending the last government shutdown. During the three weeks, negotiations were to be made over the billions of dollars Trump demanded from the Democrats for his southwestern border wall. 800,000 federal workers suffered during the month long government shutdown, many being furloughed or forced to work without pay.

In the earlier stages of the government shutdown, President Trump continued to rebuff any spending bill that did not allocate $5.7 billion to fund a wall on the border of Mexico and the United States. Democrats were eager to end the shutdown, but were firm in their refusal to sacrifice billions of dollars for Trump’s wall.

 

Media Resources: Vox 2/12/19; Politico 2/11/19; New York Times 1/25/19; Feminist News 1/25/19; Feminist News 1/22/19

Support eh ERA banner