NEW YORK/WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans rebuked the president on Wednesday after his threat to shut down the U. S. government over funding for a border wall rattled markets and cast a shadow over congressional efforts to raise the country’s debt ceiling and pass…
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans rebuked the president on Wednesday after his threat to shut down the U. S. government over funding for a border wall rattled markets and cast a shadow over congressional efforts to raise the country’s debt ceiling and pass spending bills.
Congress will have about 12 working days when it returns on Sep 5 from its summer break to approve spending measures to keep the government from shutting down, and a deadline also is closing in for raising the cap on the amount the federal government may borrow.
With those deadlines looming in late September and early October, Trump raised the prospect in a speech on Tuesday evening of a shutdown if Congress does not agree to fund his long-promised wall along the border with Mexico.
U. S. stocks and the dollar weakened and investors pivoted to the safety of U. S. Treasury securities on Wednesday. The S&P 500 Index was about 0.3 per cent lower in afternoon trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by 0.3 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite Index slid 0.2 per cent. The dollar weakened against both the euro and yen.
Trump made building a border wall to deter illegal immigration a central part of his 2016 election campaign but the issue of funding it has not gained traction as lawmakers, including many Republicans, question whether it is necessary.
The top Republican in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, said on Wednesday that a wall was necessary but the government did not have to choose between border security and a government shutdown.
“I don’t think anyone’s interested in having a shutdown, ” he told reporters in Hillsboro, Oregon, where visited an Intel factory. “I don’t think it’s in our interest to do so.”
Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a Republican who chairs a House Appropriations subcommittee, said shutting down the government was very “unwise” and such a move could backfire on the party that controls power in Washington.
“When you control the presidency, the Senate and the House, you’ re shutting down the government that you’ re running. I don’ t think it’s smart politically and I don’ t think it would succeed practically, ” he told Reuters in an interview.
Republicans have been trying for months to make a deal on funding the government.
