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A plan to ensure long-term funding to address health needs stemming from the terrorist attacks fell to the wayside after President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk objected to a bipartisan budget deal.
Dec. 23, 2024, 6:21 p.m. ET
James Brosi, the president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York, traveled to Washington last week to personally thank Speaker Mike Johnson for including long-term funding to help people with the lingering health effects from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as part of a bipartisan spending deal.
But by day’s end on Wednesday, President-elect Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, had scuttled the bill with their criticism that it was bloated and failed to deliver on Mr. Trump’s priorities. After a tumultuous standoff, the House and Senate finally approved stripped-down legislation at the end of the week to avert a government shutdown — without providing money for the health fund.
Mr. Brosi said he was crushed. Firefighters, he said, had thought they were finally closing a chapter in the yearslong battle to end periodic shortfalls and secure long-term funding for emergency workers and others who have grown deathly ill from the toxins of ground zero.
“Obviously we are not against smarter spending and we’re not against cutting wasteful spending,” Mr. Brosi said. “What we are against is universal killing of a bill without looking deeper into individual parts of it that have merit and are not wasteful spending.”
Asked about Mr. Trump’s role in torpedoing the deal that contained the health funding, Karoline Leavitt, his spokeswoman, said in a statement, “President Trump looks forward to working with the new Congress after he is sworn in to enact his America First agenda and the priorities of the American people, such as ensuring that 9/11 first responders get the care they need.”
The initial legislation included a provision that would have ensured care through about 2040 for victims of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, as well as the police officers, nurses, firefighters and volunteers who inhaled toxic fumes, dust and smoke at ground zero.
