After a bitter standoff over border-wall funding, Republicans on Wednesday moved away from a potential government shutdown, saying they would support a temporary spending bill.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said he would advance a stopgap measure to fund the government until February 8. The temporary continuing resolution would keep border-fence funding at the same level for now.
“Our Democratic colleagues rejected an extremely reasonable offer,” McConnell said of negotiations for a long-term spending bill. “There will be important unfinished business in front of us and we’ll owe it to the American people to finally tackle it.”
McConnell was referring to Democrats’ refusal to include in a spending bill the $5 billion that President Trump requested to build his promised border wall. Republicans offered a compromise of $1.6 billion for border fencing, the amount Democrats said they would approve, plus $1 billion more for other immigration needs. Democrats rejected this offer.
The government is scheduled to partially shut down after Friday when funding runs out for several departments, including Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, State, Interior, Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Justice.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer was stolid in his refusal, arguing that he would not approve a “slush fund” for Trump’s “radical” immigration policies.
“I’m sorry that my Democratic colleagues couldn’t put the partisanship aside and show the same good-faith flexibility that the president has shown in order to provide the resources of our nation needs to secure the integrity of our borders as well as the safety of American families,” McConnell said.
“The Senate will continue our work on the remaining bills, the result of bipartisan work and collaboration,” McConnell continued, “and in the meantime we will turn to a clean continuing resolution later today so we can make sure we don’t end this year the way we began it, with another government shutdown because of Democrats’ allergy to sensible policies.”
“One way or the other, we will win on the Wall!” Trump said in a Wednesday tweet.