By Nolan D. McCaskill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Americans who visited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website Tuesday were greeted with an unusual message blaming Democrats for an impending government shutdown.
“The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands,” a pop-up on HUD.gov reads. “The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.”
The message is repeated in a bright red banner atop HUD’s website.
Congressional Democrats panned the overtly partisan messaging as government propaganda and misinformation, though some said they were unsurprised.
“We should not be putting political messages on government webpages,” said Representative Sylvia Garcia of Texas, a member of the House Financial Services Committee’s subcommittee on housing and insurance. “I have never seen that kind of message. I don’t think that would be acceptable with any other prior administration.”
Other Democrats said HUD was simply echoing rhetoric from President Donald Trump and the White House.
“Unfortunately, it’s become normal under the Trump administration, but it’s a radical departure from American history, and it is the use of public taxpayer funds for overtly political and polemical reasons,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland said.
Parts of the federal government are poised to shut down at midnight Tuesday unless Senate Democrats support a House Republican proposal to fund the government for the next seven weeks. Democrats have rejected the so-called clean continuing resolution, or CR, instead calling on Republicans to negotiate an extension of healthcare benefits set to expire at the end of the year.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill; Editing by Alistair Bell)
