US Democrats want government shutdown to strip Trump of leverage – Vance

Congress has failed to pass a spending plan backed by President-elect Donald Trump

US Vice President-elect J.D. Vance has blasted the Democrats for rejecting a spending plan supported by Donald Trump, claiming they are trying to prevent the incoming president from “negotiating leverage” in the first year of his new term in the White House.   

The current federal funding is due to expire at midnight on Friday, leaving the government on the brink of a shutdown.  

The Democrats on Thursday rejected the new spending plan, known as a continuing resolution (CR). Thirty-eight Republicans also voted against it. The bill failed by a vote of 174-235.

“The Democrats just voted to shut down the government even though we had a clean CR because they didn’t want to give the president negotiating leverage during the first year of his new term,” Vance told reporters straight after the vote.   

On Wednesday, US President-elect Trump dismissed a previous bipartisan funding deal, which had been struck to prevent a shutdown just days before the Christmas break. Republicans balked at the proposed package, claiming it was bloated and full of Democratic policy priorities. Tech billionaire Elon Musk slammed the measure in dozens of posts on X, describing it as “criminal.”  

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Instead, Trump urged lawmakers to pass a new package that included an extension of government funding until March and a two-year suspension of the debt limit into January 2027, adding trillions more to the federal government’s $36 trillion debt.  

The Trump-backed bill failed just hours after it was assembled, with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson pledging to come up with another solution before government funding lapses at midnight on Friday.  

Republicans have voiced opposition to increases in government spending, while Democrats voted against the bill because they argued the extra borrowing would be used to pass tax cuts for the wealthy.

“They’ve asked for a shutdown and I think that’s exactly what they’re going to get,” Vance claimed.  

If lawmakers fail to approve a spending bill or extend the deadline, the US government will begin a partial shutdown that would affect millions of federal employees and the services they provide.   

While essential services such as border protection, in-hospital medical care, law enforcement and air-traffic control continue to operate, the shutdown would affect a vast number of operations, from court proceedings to travel and food safety inspections.   

Federal workers could go without pay, expecting they would be paid back in full once the government reopens.  

The last US government shutdown took place in December 2018 and January 2019 during Trump’s first White House term and was the longest in the country’s history.