Donald Trump has put his name to a $1.1 trillion budget bill to finance the US government for the rest of the financial year even though his ‘down payment’ for the border wall is missing.
Earlier in the week he crowed that the first payment for building the controversial border wall was coming, he had to sign the bill minus the provision to stop the government closing at midnight on May 5.
His team shelved the plan in favour of seeing the bill go through both houses and horse traded to see more money for the military and the scrapping of Obamacare.
Signing the bill gives Trump five more months to negotiate his tax and spending plans with Congress.
The bill does include $1.5 billion for extra spending on border security, but this came with an express veto on spending a cent on the wall.
Tough talking
Elsewhere, Trump won $15 billion for defence and extra money for NASA space exploration, medical research and federal security agencies.
He faces some tough talking with his own Republican supporters as well as the Democrat opposition.
The Democrats stopped him pulling foreign aid, environmental spending and grants for the arts.
Earlier in the week, Trump took to Twitter, his media channel of choice and suggested a ‘good shutdown will fix the mess’ of the bill.
Shortly after, he returned to Twitter to announce he would sign the bill and that the result was a victory for the White House.
Whispering campaign
Republicans did not quite see the same result.
“It is a win for Democrats and a loss for conservatives,” said tea party Representative Dave Brat. “We have a Republican in the White House and control of both chambers of Congress yet this legislation fails to include key conservative reforms Republicans have long-advocated.”
Throughout Congress, murmurs were heard about the bill was secretly negotiated behind closed doors. Many wondered if politicians had time to read the 1,665-page bill before voting on the contents.
“Is there any member of the United States Senate that has read this?” asked Senator John McCain of Arizona. “And many of us are going to be compelled to vote for it because we don’t want to shut the government down.”
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