By Big Al
Comments on the Spending Bill from Big Al and Jim McKinney
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Donald Trump Signs Spending Bill After Threatening to Veto It
The $1.3 trillion measure passed Congress this week
President Trump speaks about the spending bill during a White House news conference on Friday. There are ‘a lot of things I’m unhappy about in this bill,’ he said. PHOTO:NICHOLAS KAMM/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By
Kristina Peterson,
Rebecca Ballhaus and
Laura Meckler
Updated March 23, 2018 1:46 p.m. ET
1765 COMMENTS
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump on Friday signed a sweeping $1.3 trillion bill funding the U.S. government until October, hours after threatening to veto it over dissatisfaction with its immigration provisions.
The bill passed the House on Thursday and the Senate early Friday. Most lawmakers then left Washington for a two-week recess, operating under the assumption that he would sign the bill before the government’s funding expires at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
“As a matter of a national security, I’ve signed this omnibus budget bill,” Mr. Trump said, before quickly adding that there were “a lot of things I’m unhappy about in this bill.”
Mr. Trump criticized Congress for passing the spending package without leaving enough time to read the plan before funding expires at the end of the day.
“I say to Congress—I will never sign another bill like this again,” Mr. Trump said.
In a tweet earlier Friday, Mr. Trump cited his unhappiness with the amount of funding for his proposed wall on the border with Mexico, and he faulted Democrats for the fact that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which former President Barack Obama established and which the president ended last year, wasn’t addressed.
“I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded,” Mr. Trump tweeted.
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During protracted negotiations in recent months, Mr. Trump rejected offers by Democrats to pair $25 billion for a border wall and related expenses with a path to citizenship for people eligible for the DACA program. Protecting the young immigrants was a Democratic priority, but the party’s lawmakers have been unwilling to accede to Trump demands for other changes in the immigration system.
With no agreement reached, the $1.3 trillion spending bill passed by the House on Thursday and the Senate early Friday morning didn’t include an extension of DACA. The Obama-era program shielded from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the country at a young age, often called Dreamers, and allows them temporarily to work legally in the U.S.
When Mr. Trump ended the program in September, he gave Congress until March 5 to pass a replacement before large numbers of people lost protections. But a federal court has ordered that the administration continue the program for now, and the Supreme Court has declined to expedite its hearing of the government’s appeal, lessening the urgency for lawmakers to agree on a fix.
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Source:: The Korelin Economics Report
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