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Congressional gridlock ends; federal govt reopened
Kilili: First time struggling to pass budget with dominating party
The standoff between congressional Democrats and Republicans ended yesterday after the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed a continuing resolution to end the federal government shutdown.
Members of the U.S. Congress agreed in the wee hours yesterday on a continuing resolution to run the federal government for three more weeks. Hours later, U.S. President Donald J. Trump signed it into law.
Passing through the U.S. Senate with a vote of 81-18, the three-day federal government shutdown ended after agreements between both parties in the Senate resulted in Republicans promising to address those affected by the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals. Immigrants under the protection of the program could possibly face deportation since U.S. Donald J. Trump rescinded the program last September 2017. DACA was set to end early March 2018.
In a statement, Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said this was the first in modern times where a political party had control of the presidency and a majority of U.S. Congress seats but still struggled to pass a spending bill.
“Constant stopgap spending bills are no way to run the government. We still do not have a long-term spending bill to address our defense and domestic priorities,” said Sablan, adding that the bipartisan conflicts were rooted in the lack of funding for veterans’ infrastructure and services; re-authorization of community health centers and health extenders; addressing the opioid epidemic; saving Americans’ pensions; securing funding for disaster-struck areas such as Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and more; a budget that funds the military and the domestic investments; and protecting Dreamers, or individuals who entered the U.S. under the DACA program.
“Congressional Democrats have been fighting for increases in funding for defense as well as domestic priorities, which we have proposed to the Republicans and sent to the President,” he said.
“We continue to propose bipartisan solutions. While today’s vote once again ends the shutdown, it does not diminish our leverage to pass funding for what’s important to the American people,” he added.
