USA: Congress rejects budget proposal supported by Trump

RND - Editorial Network Germany USA: Congress rejects budget proposal supported by Trump 8 hours • 1 minute reading time The designated US President Donald Trump. A new budget supported by the designated President Donald Trump has failed in the US House of Representatives. In addition to almost all Democrats, 38 Republicans also voted against the proposal on Thursday evening. In order to prevent a partial standstill of government business on Saturday night (local time), the US Parliament would have to pass a bill by Friday - and the incumbent President Joe Biden would have to sign it. If that does not happen, some state institutions would have to stop working and many civil servants would not be paid for the time being. Blockade maneuver by Trump and Musk Trump, who will not be sworn in as president until January, torpedoed the adoption of an interim budget in Congress on Wednesday - seconded by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is supposed to help Trump cut government spending and is a close confidant of the Republican. The blockade maneuver by the two is also a demonstration of the balance of power in the Republican Party. The future president had openly called on all of his Republican representatives not to agree to a comprehensive piece of legislation that had already been negotiated with the Democrats. In doing so, he raised the risk of a "shutdown" in the first place and plunged parliament into major turmoil shortly before the Christmas break. The Republicans have now presented a significantly slimmed-down piece of legislation, which, however, is meeting with great resistance from the Democrats. The Democratic minority leader in the US House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, called the new draft "laughable" and complained that extreme forces in the Republican Party were trying to trigger a "shutdown" of the government. Trump called the new draft a "very good" agreement and called on both parties in Congress to pass it immediately and thus avoid a "shutdown" - things turned out differently on Thursday evening.