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Trump Scores His First Win in Congress
The Atlantic
Russell Berman 2 hrs ago
In this Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich.
It didn’t take long for President-elect Donald Trump to make his mark on legislation in Congress.
Republican leaders announced Thursday they would punt major spending decisions into 2017 in accordance with the incoming administration’s wishes. That means Congress plans to pass only a stopgap bill that will fund the federal government through March rather than an omnibus appropriations bill that would set spending priorities for the first eight months of Trump’s term.
“I think the new incoming government would like to have say-so on how money is going to be spent going into 2017,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters at a press conference. “We’ve got a lot of funding priorities that we would like to have changed relative to the Obama funding priorities. It’s as simple as that.”
Had Hillary Clinton won the presidency, Congress in all likelihood would have pushed harder to strike a big spending agreement in its lame-duck session, a move that would have cleared the way for her to focus on other legislative priorities during her first weeks in office. But Republicans know they will get a better deal with Trump than under President Obama, so they will keep spending levels as they are for another few months by passing a continuing resolution in the next few weeks.
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Trump Scores His First Win in Congress
