Washington > US President Donald Trump said today he had signed the USD 1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress despite being "unhappy" about it to avert a government shutdown, hours after saying he was considering a veto. Trump cited misgivings about its contents but said it was needed for national security reasons. Signing of the bill was important to get the federal government running till September 30 this year. Soon after signing the bill, Trump warned that he "will never sign a bill like this again" and called on Congress to abolish the filibuster and pass a line-item veto. He called the signing a "ridiculous" situation. "You tell me who can read that quickly," Trump said eyeing the bill as he decried defense cuts.
"As a matter of national security I've signed this omnibus budget bill. There are a lot of things I'm unhappy about in this bill," Trump said. "I say to Congress: I will never sign another bill like this again. My highest duty is to keep America safe. Nothing more important. This omnibus reverses defense cuts," Trump said. He said this hours after he threw a spanner by tweeting that he was thinking of vetoing the bill which has ben sent to him for signature by the Congress.
"I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded," Trump tweeted. He said DACA was abandoned by the Democrats. "Very unfair to them! Would have been tied to desperately needed Wall," he said.
The tweet came as a surprise for the Republican leaders in the Congress. He slammed Democrats for what he described as opposition to higher military spending while calling spending on Democratic priorities "a wasted sum of money". He went on to say the filibuster must be repealed in the Senate and that "we wanted to include DACA in this bill" but Democrats wouldn't allow it.
He called on Congress to approve a line-item veto to prevent this type of bill from being passed again.DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was started by the previous Obama administration. It allows some individuals under restrictive conditions, who entered the country, as minors. Some 800,000 such people had registered under the DACA policy. However, their actual number is quite higher. The programme is now lapsed. Passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Omnibus spending bill allows federal funding till September 30, 2018. Early this week, the White House said that the president would sign the bill
