President Donald Trump proudly boasted that he would shut down the government if he didn’t get $5.7 billion to fund a border wall. Now, the New York Times reports that the federal government shut down early Saturday after congressional and White House officials failed to reach a compromise on a spending bill for Trump’s wall.
It is the third shutdown in two years under unified Republican majority in D.C., and it will affect hundreds of thousands of government employees, including at nine federal departments, the report states.
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“I’ve been a federal employee and know the impact a shutdown has on families. Right now ~750,000 federal employees are heading into the holidays without paychecks. No elected official should ever be “proud to shut down the government” at the expense of hardworking public servants,” said Congresswoman-elect for NJ’s 11th District, Mikie Sherrill.
I’ve been a federal employee and know the impact a shutdown has on families. Right now ~750,000 federal employees are heading into the holidays without paychecks. No elected official should ever be “proud to shut down the government” at the expense of hardworking public servants.
— Mikie Sherrill (@MikieSherrill) December 22, 2018
“President Trump has thrown a temper tantrum and now has us careening towards a ‘Trump shutdown’ over Christmas,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor on Friday.
In a joint statement released overnight, Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed the “destructive Trump Shutdown” that was triggered by the president’s demand for border wall money.
“Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House,” they said. “But instead of honoring his responsibility to the American people, President Trump threw a temper tantrum and convinced House Republicans to push our nation into a destructive Trump Shutdown in the middle of the holiday season. President Trump has said more than 25 times that he wanted a shutdown and now he has gotten what he wanted.”
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Schumer and Pelosi noted that “Democrats have offered Republicans multiple proposals to keep the government open, including one that already passed the Senate unanimously, and all of which include funding for strong, sensible, and effective border security – not the president’s ineffective and expensive wall.”
If the government is not up and running soon, the lawmakers vowed to “swiftly pass legislation to re-open” it in January once Democratic flip the House.