Democrats have plan to fund US govt, but not for a border wall

WASHINGTON: Congressional Democrats have proposed a plan to end the partial shutdown of the US government, but left out funding for the border wall that caused it for further discussion. President Donald Trump dissed the plan in multiple tweets.

The plan introduced by speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Monday included two separate legislative actions: One combined bill to fund for the full year six of the departments that are shut, and a second to fund the homeland security department, which would oversee the border and thus the agency responsible for the wall, until February.

“While President Trump drags the nation into Week Two of the Trump Shutdown and sits in the White House and tweets, without offering any plan that can pass both chambers of Congress, Democrats are taking action to lead our country out of this mess,” Pelosi and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement on Monday.

The legislation, they added, “reopens government services, ensures workers get the paychecks they’ve earned and restores certainty to the lives of the American people.”

Trump’s response was negative, though not dismissive. “The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall. So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security and our Country must finally have a Strong and Secure Southern Border!,” he tweeted.

“One thing has now been proven. The Democrats do not care about Open Borders and all of the crime and drugs that Open Borders bring!” he added.

Trump has sought $5 billion for a wall along the border with Mexico to stop people crossing over illegally. Democrats, some of whom had ridiculed the idea as stupid, are willing to allow only $1.3 bn, and that too for enhanced border security and not to be used for the wall. Disagreement over the funding has shut down a fourth of the federal government, with over 800,000 employees furloughed or a working without pay.

Democrats will likely come up for a Thursday when they take charge of the House of Representatives, which they wrested from Republicans in the November mid-term elections. They hold the purse-strings of the US federal government now.