(TheIndependentStar.com) – As Congress prepares to vote on temporary funding to keep the government open, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has been pushing his party to force a shutdown unless Democrats concede certain demands.
The move comes as a rebellion within the Republican Party put pressure on leaders trying to avoid a crisis just weeks before the presidential election.
Government funding will expire at the end of September, and Congress will need to pass a stopgap bill—known as a “continuing resolution” (CR)—to keep things running past the election.
A shutdown would close federal agencies and national parks, limit public services, and leave millions of workers without pay just weeks before the election.
Moreover, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to call a vote later for a six-month extension, moving the shutdown deadline to March, when the next president would be in office.
However, he is also planning to tie the vote to legislation requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, known as the SAVE Act.
Trump, who continues to influence the House Republican group and falsely claims voter fraud in the 2020 election, has been urging Johnson to include this measure in the package.
“I would shut down the government in a heartbeat… if they don’t get it in the bill,” Trump said on Monica Crowley’s podcast, a senior Treasury official in his administration.
This week, Trump posted on social media that Republicans should “in no way” agree to a CR if they “don’t get absolute assurances on election security.”
Nevertheless, Johnson does not seem to have the backing of enough of his own party members and has admitted he has no backup plan if the package fails. Thus, he risks a shutdown at the start of October, less than five weeks before Election Day.
In the Senate, the Democrats plan to remove the voting provisions and give House Republicans an ultimatum: pass a “clean” CR that extends funding to the end of the year or trigger a government shutdown.
With the election approaching, vulnerable Republicans view a government shutdown as a potential disaster for their reelection chances.
Johnson also argued that a March funding deadline would allow a newly elected President Trump to influence spending decisions if he wins the White House, rather than leaving it to Joe Biden.
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