(GoRealNewsNow.com) – With just days left before the September 30 budget deadline, GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has urged House Republicans to press hard for conservative goals on spending by using the threat of a government shutdown.
To avoid a shutdown before the start of the new fiscal year, Congress has to strike a deal on short- and long-term spending bills.
However, there are significant disagreements between the GOP, which controls the House, and Democrats in control of the Senate, and among House Republicans themselves, Newsmax notes in a report quoting the Associated Press.
It points out that the message that Trump sent to House Republicans seems to support the intra-party opposition to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), mainly in the face of the House Freedom Caucus.
“A very important deadline is approaching at the end of the month. Republicans in Congress can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Government that refuses to close the Border, and treats half the Country as Enemies of the State,” the former president wrote in a Truth Social post Wednesday night.
“This is also the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other Patriots. They failed on the debt limit, but they must not fail now. Use the power of the purse and defend the Country!” Trump elaborated.
McCarthy told reporters House Republicans were “very close” to a short-term spending measure known as a “continuing resolution,” which would prevent a shutdown. He also forecasted he would manage to move forward with longer-term spending bills.
One of McCarthy’s GOP critics, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), shared Trump’s message and insisted other conservative lawmakers to “hold the line” against a continuing resolution, which would help the Democrats retain the existing levels of government funding.
“Trump Opposes the Continuing Resolution. Hold the line,” Gaetz wrote on X.
The report emphasizes that “Republican hardline conservatives” seek to guarantee that fiscal 2024 appropriations would not go over a 2022 top line of $1.47 trillion.
That would be a $120 billion reduction compared with what McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to in May in a deal to avert the default of the US government.
Trump reiterated his call to frustrate Biden’s spending plans in a Wednesday speech in Dubuque, Iowa, urging Republicans to “get tougher.”