Trump and Musk deliver death blow to govt funding bill


President Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk to uncover alleged 'fraud and waste'. Photo: AAP/TND
US president-elect Donald Trump hasn’t taken office yet, but already he and Elon Musk have put the US government on the brink of a shutdown.
Trump and the tech billionaire teamed up to rail against a bipartisan bill designed to keep the government funded past the deadline of midnight Friday (US time).
Trump warned that Republicans who voted for the package could have trouble getting re-elected because they would face primary challenges inside their own party.
“Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be Primaried,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Musk also whipped up outrage with a stream of posts on X, which Kentucky Republican Andy Barr said caused his phone to ring off the hook with angry constituents.
Musk, who has been tasked by Trump to prune the federal budget, pressured Congress to reject the bill and said those who backed it should be voted out of office.
The US Congress has just two days to avert a partial government shutdown.
A bipartisan deal reached on Tuesday would have extended funding through March 14. However, Trump and his ally Musk appear to have stopped the bill in its tracks.
Without congressional action, the partial shutdown will begin on Saturday, disrupting everything from air travel to law enforcement in the days leading up to December 25.
If it materialises, it will be the first government shutdown since Trump’s first term. That one extended from December 2018 into 2019.
The next steps for Congress are unclear.
Bipartisan agreement will be needed to pass any spending bill through the House, where Republicans have a 219-211 majority, and the Senate, where Democrats hold a narrow majority.
The White House of Democratic President Joe Biden, who remains in power until Trump takes office on January 20, said on Wednesday that “Republicans need to stop playing politics” and that a government shutdown would be damaging.
The bill would fund government agencies at current levels and provide $US100 billion ($161 billion) for disaster relief and $US10 billion in farm aid.
It also includes a range of unrelated provisions, such as a pay rise for lawmakers and a crackdown on hidden hotel fees.
Trump said Congress should limit the bill to temporary spending and disaster relief and raise the national debt ceiling.
The stopgap measure is needed because Congress has failed to pass regular spending legislation for the fiscal year that began on October 1.
Mounting debt — currently $US36 trillion — will force lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling either now or when borrowing authority runs out in 2025.
Failure to act could have potentially severe economic consequences.
-with AAP