The White House blasted Democrats Friday for playing politics with a government shutdown looming in just hours.
White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney opened a White House briefing by focusing blame in the faltering efforts to keep government funded by calling the potential shutdown "the Schumer shutdown" after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., before charging that the Democratic Obama administration "weaponized the shutdown in 2013."
A short-term spending bill passed in the House Thursday night, but the measure must now receive 60 votes in the Senate to pass before Friday night's deadline. If nothing is passed, many parts of the government will shut down and essential federal workers won't be paid.
At issue is what to do with people who have benefitted from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA will expire March 5, and Mulvaney said Democrats are unnecessarily trying to ram a DACA fix into the short-term spending bill that will keep the government funded through Feb. 16.
"No reason you have to deal with DACA this week or before the … middle of February," Mulvaney said. "DACA doesn't expire until March 5. This is purely an attempt by the Senate Democrats led by [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer — that's why we call it the Schumer shutdown — in order to try to get a shutdown that they think this president gets blamed for."
Added White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short, "They want a solution to DACA but there is not a bill they're asking Republicans to bring up. They believe it's better for them to force a shutdown. The president will continue to reach out to them throughout the day. He is actively on the phone."
Mulvaney seemed particularly frustrated over his insistence that Democrats agree with the content of the short-term spending bill that's currently sitting in the Senate chamber.
"They don't oppose anything in there," he said, before rattling off a partial list of what's in the bill. "It worked in the House. Several Democrats voted for it."
Mulvaney said his office has been working on contingency plans if the government is shut down. He said the military, Border Patrol, and firefighters dealing with wildfires in California will still work but won't be paid until the government reopens.
What would be different from the 16-day shutdown of 2013, however, has to do with national parks.
"Parks will be open this time and they weren't before," Mulvaney said, noting that third-party vendors who pick up trash, for example, won't be working.
"We'll manage the shutdown differently. We are not going to weaponize it and not try to hurt people if you work for the federal government."
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