Powers of Trump and Congress collide in government shutdown fight

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON : President Trump has spent his first weeks back in office undoing much of the handiwork of Congress—freezing spending that lawmakers authorized, idling agencies that were already funded and bypassing laws regarding immigration and independent agencies. A budget fight now brewing in Congress is becoming the first test of whether lawmakers will try to claw back any of their powers—or whether they accede to a new power alignment in Washington that centralizes far more authority in the White House.

Opinion is hardening among Democrats that Congress must pass measures to compel Trump to spend money on federal programs as designated by lawmakers—to put guardrails on his unilateral efforts to reshape the federal bureaucracy and reclaim, as they say, their constitutional power of the purse. Some are insisting that these requirements be written into must-pass legislation needed to fund the government after March 14, raising the prospect that Democrats—if they stick to their demands—could withhold the votes that Republican leaders have typically needed in recent years to pass such spending bills. That would set the government on course for its first shutdown since 2019.

“We should absolutely insist on safeguards to assure that funds are spent when they are appropriated" as a condition of passing a spending bill, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.). Sen.

Edward Markey (D., Mass.) said he couldn’t vote for even a short-term bill to fund the government “in the absence of guarantees" that the president will honor Congress’s funding priorities. Republicans say there is no way they can agree. “We’re not going to shackle the president of the United States—can’t do it," said House