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The government is still not fully funded for the rest of the fiscal year – meaning September 30.
Yes. The House and Senate approved a bipartisan bill funding most of the Department of Homeland Security in late April. It’s similar to what the Senate approved unilaterally in late March. But the House never took it up until just before a recent Congressional recess.
Now the GOP is trying to go around Democrats and pass a three-year bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol. Democrats never secured reforms at ICE. So they aren’t willing to help out. That’s why Republicans are using a special process called budget reconciliation to bypass Democrats.
President Trump holds a design of a proposed presidential ballroom at the White House. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg)
The only hitch is that it takes a while. The goal is to pass this bill by June 1.
House GOP pushes back on Senate’s ‘skinny’ plan to end record-breaking DHS shutdown
Republican Congressional leaders initially wanted to make this bill rather spare, just funding ICE and Border Patrol. But they expanded that measure to include $1 billion for President Trump’s ballroom security after the recent assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
So Democrats are launching a blitz about the ballroom.
RELATED: REPUBLICANS QUESTION TRUMP BALLROOM FUNDING IN DHS BILL
“Republicans say let them eat cake and demand American taxpayers build Trump a palace while they’re at it,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) “These ‘ballroom Republicans’ have a constituency of one: Donald Trump’s ego.”
“The president just plowed down the East Wing of the White House. And it sits there as a gaping hole waiting to be filled. It was going to be his billionaire buddies filling it. Now it’s the American taxpayers,” complained Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
Senate Republican leaders initially insisted that the latest…
