According to the latest news, the White House has applauded the budget deal put forward by the Senate. On Wednesday, the White House appreciated a bipartisan two year budget deal announced by the leader of the Senate.
The Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the reporters, “We applaud the steps forward that they’ve made.”
But, Sanders did not clarify whether President Trump will sign the agreement straightaway. She added that Trump might “need to see what’s in the final bill,” before making the deal official.
Regardless, the spokeswoman of the White House stated that the officials are “certainly happy with the direction that it’s moving, particularly that we’re moving away from the crisis budgeting that we’ve been on in the past.”
With this move, the Senate leaders might have managed to avert a prospect of a government shutdown at midnight on Thursday which is when the current funding would have expired.
Earlier Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) met with Senate Democrats including Charles Schumer. The meeting resulted in the announcement of the sweeping deal that will fund the government and set spending levels for defense and nondefense programs over the next two years.
Sanders added that the agreement further “achieves our top priority” which was to raise defense spending. She also said it lifts the debt ceiling to March 2019.
It is still not clear whether the agreement has enough support to pass the House because of internal disparities. According to the White House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), she will be looking to oppose budget deals until she gets the commitment from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Nancy is looking for assurance that will see the protection of immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.
The positive statement from the White House came just a day after Trump announced that he would support a government shutdown in case their demands on immigration are not met by the Democrats.
“We’ll do a shutdown and it’s worth it for our country. I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of,” Trump said.
“If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don’t want safety and, unrelated but still related, they don’t want to take care of our military, then shut it down,” he added. “We’ll go with another shutdown.”
Sanders continued, “We are not advocating for the shutdown, that’s the fault of the Democrats not being able to do their jobs. The president wants a long-term deal and he wants a deal on immigration and he hopes Democrats will come to the table and get that done.”
