Members of Congress have until mid-March to pass a funding measure.
A Democratic senator said that he and his fellow Democrats are open to shutting down the government in March if President Donald Trump’s recent actions in slimming down the federal government aren’t halted.
“I cannot support efforts that will continue this lawlessness that we’re seeing when it comes to this administration’s actions,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in an interview Sunday. “And for us to be able to support government funding in that way only for them to turn it around, to dismantle the government. That is not something that should be allowed.”
The Trump administration has promised to root out fraud, waste, and other forms of abuse from various federal agencies, an effort currently led by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse and, you know, the people elected me on that,” Trump said in a Fox News interview Sunday. He described Musk as “terrific” and said he would soon focus on the Department of Defense, the country’s largest government agency.
Members of Congress have until mid-March to pass a measure to fund the government, including a spending package for the military and one for non-defense programs. Democrats have minorities in both the House and the Senate, while Trump has prior experience dealing with government shutdowns—with one lasting more than a month between December 2018 and January 2019.
“In a few weeks, the Republicans are going to try to figure out how they move forward, and they have, for the last two years, needed Democratic votes for every single continuing resolution, and they should not count on that this time,” Kim said in the interview, referring to a bill known as a continuing resolution that funds the government on a temporary basis.
Democrats, he said, are willing to work against Republicans if the Trump administration continues to target government agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Education.
“They are simply trying to dismantle the government,” Kim said.
