WASHINGTON: The US government, already shaken by Donald Trump\u2019s radical reforms, could begin shutting down entirely this weekend as Democrats grapple with the option of opposing the president\u2019s federal funding plans \u2014 at the risk this blows up in their faces.
\nWith a Friday night deadline to fund the government or allow it to start winding down its operations, the Senate is set for a crunch vote ahead of the midnight cut-off on a Trump-backed bill passed by the House of Representatives.
\nThe package would keep the lights on through September, but Democrats are under immense pressure from their own grassroots to defy Trump and reject a text they say is full of harmful spending cuts.
\n\u201cIf it shuts down, it\u2019s not the Republicans\u2019 fault. We passed a bill… If there\u2019s a shutdown, even the Democrats admit it will be their fault,\u201d Trump told reporters on Thursday.
\nA handful of Democrats in Trump-supporting states \u2014 worried that they would be blamed over a stoppage with no obvious exit ramp \u2014 appear ready to incur the wrath of their own supporters by backing down.
\nBut the vote remains on a knife edge, with many Democrats yet to reveal their decision.
\nRepublican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who voted against a bill to avert a shutdown as recently as 18 months ago, urged the minority party to \u201cput partisan politics aside and do the right thing.\u201d
\n\u201cWhen the government shuts down, you have government employees who are no longer paid, you have services that begin to lag. It brings great harm on the economy and the people,\u201d he told Fox News.
\nThe funding fight is focused on opposition to Trump\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), unofficially spearheaded by tech mega-billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk, which is working to dramatically reduce the size of the government.
\nDOGE aims to cut federal spending by $1 trillion this year and claims to have made savings so far of $115 billion through lease terminations, contract cancelations and firing federal workers.
\nIts online \u201cwall of receipts\u201d accounts for a tiny portion of that total, however, and US media outlets have found its website to be riddled with errors, misleading math and exaggerations.
\nGrassroots Democrats, infuriated by what they see as the SpaceX and Tesla CEO\u2019s lawless rampage through the federal bureaucracy, want their leaders to stand up to DOGE and Trump.
\nThe funding bill is likely to need support from at least eight Democrats in the Senate, but its Republican authors ignored the minority party\u2019s demands to protect Congress\u2019s authority over the government\u2019s purse strings and rein in Musk.
\nWashington progressive representative Pramila Jayapal told CNN there would be a \u201chuge backlash\u201d against Senate Democrats supporting the bill.
\nSeveral top Democrats have warned, however, that a shutdown could play into Musk\u2019s hands, making further lay-offs easier and distracting from DOGE\u2019s most unpopular actions, which just this week has included firing half the Education Department\u2019s workforce.
\n\u201cNow it\u2019s a (bill) that we all agree we don\u2019t like \u2014 but for me we can\u2019t ever allow the government to shut down,\u201d Pennsylvania\u2019s Democratic Senator John Fetterman told CNN, warning that a recession could follow.
\nRepublicans control 53 seats in the 100-member Senate.
\nLegislation in the upper chamber requires a preliminary ballot with a 60-vote threshold \u2014 designed to encourage bipartisanship \u2014 before final passage, which only needs a simple majority.
\nSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told his members privately on Thursday he will vote yes at the preliminary stage, according to congressional media outlet Punchbowl News.
\nHe and Fetterman are the only Democrats committed to allowing the bill to move forward, and Schumer has not ordered his members to follow suit.
\nBut others could cross the aisle if Republicans allow amendment votes on their legislative priorities.
\nEach would fail, but it is a face-saving exercise that would allow Democrats to tell their activists at home that they fought for their principles.
\nIt is not clear however that this would shield them from the criticism that they bent the knee to Trump and Musk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: The US government, already shaken by Donald Trump\u2019s radical reforms, could begin shutting down entirely this weekend as Democrats grapple with the option of opposing the president\u2019s federal funding plans \u2014 at the risk this blows up in their faces. With a Friday night deadline to fund the government or allow it to start …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":78386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78387,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78373\/revisions\/78387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}