Sawt Falasteen - US Democrats fume as some in party cave to Trump on spending bill

Congressional passage of the controversial spending bill was being seen as a setback for Democratic backbenchers -- and the latest illustration of party leaders' political impotence in their opposition to President Donald Trump as he takes a wrecking ball to the US federal bureaucracy.

In New York, more than a thousand people protested against Trump's layoffs, and their anger was no longer directed only at Trump and his chief waste hunter, Elon Musk.

Michelle Vaughan, a 53-year-old artist, carried a sign that read "Elon out! - You too, Chuck!" referring to House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who supported the bill along with several colleagues.

"The budget was our only leverage," Vaughan told AFP at the protest in Manhattan. "It was a way to show the base of Democrats and the world that there's a resistance to this authoritarian takeover."

The measure slashes billions of dollars from public spending at a time government agencies are already reeling from the dismissal of thousands of civil servants by Trump and Musk.

Despite stark warnings from Democrats, including popular House progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the resolution passed the Senate late Friday with the support of 10 Democrats, including Schumer.

The 74-year-old top Democrat from the state of New York had claimed earlier this week that his camp was united in opposition to the Trump-backed Republican proposal. But on Thursday he relented and declared he would vote to keep the government's lights on.

Trump signed the bill into law Saturday afternoon.

- Disunity -

Schumer justified his position as the least-worst path, and "the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people."

His close Senate ally Dick Durbin agreed.

"With Donald Trump and Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the federal government's workforce and illegally freezing federal funding, the last thing we need to do is plunge our country into further chaos and turmoil by shutting down the government," Durbin said.

But within their camp, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

Aimee Reeves, who was laid off from her private non-profit following cuts to the federal humanitarian agency USAID, said tens of thousands of people have already found themselves without a job.

"The government is not functioning as it should, and the fact that they put forth a narrative that we needed to vote for this bill to continue the government to function is normalizing something that's entirely not normal," Reeves told AFP at the New York rally.

In an angry post on the Bluesky platform shortly after the bill was passed, New York progressive Ocasio-Cortez voiced a similar view, saying Senate Democrats had "destroyed" their chances of future cooperation with their House counterparts through their "fear-based, inexplicable abdication."

She added: "They own what happens next."

Still, top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries sought to play down the divisions.

"Our party is not a cult, we are a coalition," he said in a statement after the Senate vote. "On occasion, we may strongly disagree about a particular course of action."

- 'No more cowardice' -

Earlier this week progressive congresswoman Pramila Jayapal warned on CNN that Democratic senators who vote for the GOP plan would face a "huge backlash."

Schumer has already felt the heat, with some 100 demonstrators protesting outside his New York home on Friday.

Members of the Sunrise Movement, an association of young environmentalists, also gathered outside the senator's Washington office "demanding he fight for our generation and block Trump's disastrous budget."

"No more cowardice," the organization vented on X. "Step up or step aside."

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, voiced similar sentiments, warning that Democrats who voted yes "just handed Musk and Trump free rein to destroy our environmental agencies and gut the civil service."

Meanwhile, Republicans led by Trump are rejoicing at the opposition's disarray.

"Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing," the president trumpeted from his Truth Social account Friday, saying it took "'guts' and courage."

B.Mahmoud--SF-PST