A decision by Donald Trump to once again override Congress on spending has put the country on a path to a shutdown at the end of September with Democrats unlikely to bail the administration out, according to some experts.
In a late-night move by Trump, reported by the New York Post, the president is engaging in a “pocket rescission” and clawing back $5 billion in foreign aid and peacekeeping spending that had previously been approved by Congress.
According to Punchbowl's Jake Sherman, who appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday morning, Trump’s spending “bomb” hands Democrats a good reason to stand on the sidelines and let the government grind to a halt with Trump to blame.
Speaking with the hosts, he explained, “Let me just put this very, very bluntly in a way that will define the next 32, 33 days: this will up the chances of a government shutdown, not to 100 percent, but to damn close.”
“If the Democrats were –– House and Senate Democrats were incredibly annoyed that Trump was pursuing rescissions packages, which Congress has to vote on because, think about it, if you are a Democrat and you've passed congressionally appropriated bills, spending bills, and then the administration seeks to roll back that spending, you're like, why do I need to cut another deal with Republicans on spending bill if the president does this on his own which, again, is not something that's been done in four decades or so?”
“The Democrats are not going to see it in their interest to cut a spending deal at the end of September, when government funding runs out. Period. The end,” he stated. “This is going to up the chances of a government shutdown in a major way. And remember, Congress cannot pass a government funding bill, cannot, without Democrats' help in the Senate. You need 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate. So this move is throwing a bomb into the middle of the government funding process.”‘
I think it's going to be an incredibly, incredibly difficult shutdown should that happen and incredibly difficult to get out of that shutdown,” he predicted.
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