Trump: Using Government Shutdown to Kill Democratic Projects

US President Trump said on the 14th that he is using the government "shutdown" to terminate a series of projects supported by Democrats and will announce a list of the axed "Democratic projects" on the 17th.

Trump told reporters at the White House that day, "Many (Democratic) projects will be permanently terminated... We are now able to do things we couldn't do before."

Due to disagreements between the two parties on healthcare-related benefit expenditures and other issues, the US Senate failed to pass a new temporary funding bill before the end of the last fiscal year on September 30th, leading to the exhaustion of funds needed to maintain normal government operations. Starting October 1st, the US federal government experienced another "shutdown" after nearly seven years.

According to an analysis by the US Bipartisan Policy Center on the response measures of major federal agencies, approximately 1.4 million federal employees have been forced to take unpaid leave or work without pay. On the 10th of this month, over 4,000 federal employees received dismissal notices. Trump said in a recent media interview that due to the government "shutdown," many federal employees would lose their jobs, and the layoffs would be concentrated in "areas leaning Democratic."