Democratic appropriators say Republicans have left US government funding talks, raising risk of shutdown

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By Gabriella Borter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Two Democrats in Congress said on Friday that Republicans have raised the risk of a government shutdown by insisting on including cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration in legislation to keep the government operating past a mid-March deadline.

Senator Patty Murray of Washington and Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrats on the committees that oversee spending, said in a statement that the Republican proposal to include cuts made by tech billionaire Elon Musk would give Trump too much power to spend as he pleased, even though Congress oversees federal funding.

“It’s incredibly disappointing that Republican leadership is walking away from bipartisan negotiations to fund the government,” the Democrats’ statement said.

Republican negotiators did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lawmakers face a March 14 deadline to pass a bill to fund the government, or risk a government shutdown.

While appropriators from both parties have agreed to fund the government at an overall level of $1.678 trillion until September 30, the end of the fiscal year, they are divided over the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze funding and pare down the federal workforce.

Republican appropriators have said they want to maintain spending at levels set under former Democratic President Joe Biden, and have rejected the Democrats’ demands to roll back Trump’s actions on funding.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter and David Morgan; Editing by Andy Sullivan, William Maclean and Chizu Nomiyama)