With just days remaining before the fiscal year ends on September 30, the US government faces the looming threat of a shutdown. Donald Trump is set to meet with Democratic leaders on Thursday, who are pushing to preserve key healthcare programs as part of any funding deal before the deadline.The White House has already pointed fingers at Democrats, while Trump aims to chat to avert a crisis. “Democrats are to be blamed if the US government shuts down,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Trump’s talk-it-out move
The US president agreed to meet Sen Chuck Schumer and Rep Hakeem Jeffries, however, he expressed no hopes from the meeting.“I’d love to meet with them, but I don’t think it’s going to have any impact,” AP quoted Trump saying.Trump and congressional leaders have a narrow window to begin negotiations as the government approaches a critical funding deadline, with federal money set to run out at the end of the fiscal year on Tuesday, September 30.Congress remains deadlocked, failing to pass funding legislation to keep the government running. A House-approved Republican plan to fund the government into November failed in the Senate, while a Democratic proposal to increase healthcare funding also did not pass.
‘Radical Left insanity’
In a statement on Tuesday, White House categorically called out the Democrats threatening a shutdown over what it called a “radical Left insanity.”“Radical Left Democrats are barreling the country toward a government shutdown if they don’t get their ~$1.5 trillion wish list of demands,” it said in a statement.“The party of open borders, violent crime, and transgender for everybody is now jeopardizing military pay, critical care for veterans, firefighter pay, disaster relief funding, and many more programs on which Americans rely — while President Donald J Trump and Republicans are committed to keeping the government open with a clean funding extension,” it added.
Why are Dems’ demands?
Democrats are blocking the funding bill because they want to protect key healthcare programs. Their proposal seeks to extend enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year and reverse Medicaid cuts included in earlier Republican tax and spending legislation. Republicans consider reversing the Medicaid cuts unacceptable, although they are open to discussing the health insurance subsidies later, creating the current impasse.