US Congress debates last-minute spending bill to avert government shutdown
Al JazeeraNonessential government functions are expected to shutter on Saturday unless a government spending bill can be passed. “If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP’,” the president-elect said on Friday in a social media post. “If Republicans try to pass a clean Continuing Resolution without all of the Democrat ‘bells and whistles’ that will be so destructive to our Country, all it will do, after January 20th, is bring the mess of the Debt Limit into the Trump Administration,” Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said earlier this week, with a jab at Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. Republicans need to do their job, and they need to uphold their side of the deal here.” The last government shutdown happened during the first Trump administration, in late 2018 and early 2019.