US Democrats fume as some in party cave in to Trump on spending Bill
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Ten Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, voted in favour of a controversial Republican spending Bill that prevented a government shutdown.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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WASHINGTON - Anger was rising in the Democratic ranks on March 15 after the party’s top US senator led a band of lawmakers in reluctant support of a Republican measure that prevented a government shutdown.
Congressional passage of the controversial spending Bill is being seen as a setback for Democratic backbenchers – and the latest illustration of political impotence of party leaders in their opposition to President Donald Trump as he takes a wrecking ball to the US federal bureaucracy.
“Democrats must fight back, not roll over,” declared Representative Nydia Velazquez on March 14 as she implored her fellow Democrats in the Senate to reject the spending proposal that grassroots members of the party warn is packed with harmful cuts.
The measure slashes billions of dollars from public spending at a time when government agencies are already reeling from the dismissal of thousands of civil servants by Mr Trump and his chief waste hunter, Mr Elon Musk.
The appeals of Ms Velazquez and others, including popular House progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were in vain, as the resolution passed in the Senate
The 74-year-old top Democrat had initially claimed this week that his camp was united in opposition to the Trump-backed Republican proposal. But on March 13, he relented and declared he would vote in favour in order to keep the government’s lights on.
Disunity
Mr Schumer justified his position as the least worst path, and “the best way to minimise the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people”.
His close Senate ally, Mr Dick Durbin, agreed.
“With Donald Trump and Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the federal government’s workforce and illegally freezing federal funding, the last thing we need to do is plunge our country into further chaos and turmoil by shutting down the government,” Mr Durbin said.
But within their camp, it has been a bitter pill to swallow.
Senator Adam Schiff of California, in a video posted on social media platform X after the vote, said: “Today was a bad day for the country, and I won’t sugarcoat it, today was also a bad day for the Democratic Party.”
With no control of the White House, either chamber of Congress, or the US Supreme Court, “the only hope that we have of standing up to this President, of pushing back against the destructive actions he’s taking, is if we stay together”, Mr Schiff said, lamenting the Democratic disunity in the Senate.
But in an angry post on the Bluesky platform, New York progressive Ocasio-Cortez said Senate Democrats had “destroyed” their chances of future cooperation with their House counterparts through their “fear-based, inexplicable abdication”.
She added: “They own what happens next.”
Still, top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries sought to play down the divisions.
“Our party is not a cult, we are a coalition,” he said in a statement after the Senate vote.
“On occasion, we may strongly disagree about a particular course of action.”
‘No more cowardice’
Earlier this week, progressive Representative Pramila Jayapal warned on CNN that Democratic senators who vote for the GOP plan would face a “huge backlash”, referring to the Grand Old Party, as the Republican Party is also known.
Mr Schumer has already felt the heat, with some 100 demonstrators protesting outside his New York home on March 14.
Members of the Sunrise Movement, an association of young environmentalists, gathered outside the senator’s Washington office “demanding he fight for our generation and block Trump’s disastrous budget”.
“No more cowardice,” the organisation vented on X. “Step up or step aside.”
The Centre for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, voiced similar sentiments, warning that Democrats who voted yes “just handed Musk and Trump free rein to destroy our environmental agencies and gut the civil service”.
Meanwhile, Republicans, led by Mr Trump, are rejoicing at the opposition’s disarray.
“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing,” the President trumpeted from his Truth Social account on March 14, saying it took “‘guts’ and courage”. AFP
