President Donald Trump on Friday threw his support behind the funding fix needed to allow the District of Columbia’s government to avoid $1.1 billion in budget cuts squeezed in the remaining half of the fiscal year, all but ensuring House passage of legislation the Senate passed two weeks ago.
The full-year stopgap spending law, drafted by House Republicans, did not include the typical provision that would allow the D.C. government to tap into its fiscal 2025 budget for operating costs. This would force D.C. to go back to the previous year’s funding levels for the remainder of the fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30, which local officials say would require steep cuts in critical services like law enforcement and education.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Friday that the House should “IMMEDIATELY” take up the Senate bill, which passed shortly after that chamber cleared the stopgap measure. “We need to clean up our once beautiful Capital City, and make it beautiful again,” he posted. “We will be TOUGH ON CRIME, like never before.”
