Another Government Shutdown Coming?

Could republicans acknowledge democrats ideas and positions in any way rather than fighting against them in every way possible?

Published December 30, 2018


The only way to deal with Donald Trump is to not do deals with Donald Trump. The private sector has learned this; when will Congress?

For his entire career, our dealmaker in chief has relied on a not-so-secret technique for extracting supposedly good deals: He agrees to a given set of terms and then, at the last minute, reneges on them.

He has done this to small businesses around the country, refusing to pay for cabinetry, catering, real estate commissions, and other goods and services after they’ve already been delivered. His companies have also filed for bankruptcy six times, helping him wriggle out of bills. Given this reputation, it’s hardly surprising that vendors and lenders alike ultimately learned it was wiser not to do business with him at all, rather than count on him to keep his word.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised that he’d “run government like a business,” and in this respect — among others — he has.

Multiple times since taking office, after agreeing to a deal, he has changed his mind at the very last minute. He’s done this with “dreamers,” China tariffs, a Group of Seven communique and budgets. As Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., put it earlier this year, during the lead-up to the last government shutdown, “Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O.”

Which is to say: Trump doesn’t know what he wants, only that he doesn’t want whatever he has committed to. As I’ve written before, if a man’s word is his bond, Trump’s would be rated junk.

Trump illustrated this yet again in the run-up to the latest shutdown.

Initially, Trump signaled that he’d sign a stopgap funding bill that would have kept the government open until early February. To be clear, kicking the can down the road for another seven weeks is not exactly a sign of responsible governance. But if you’re a Republican, it seemed shrewd politically. The majorities of both houses of Congress have an interest in looking at least semi-functional. Shutdowns, besides inflicting unnecessary pain on hundreds of thousands of federal workers, are embarrassing.

Which is why Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., decided to endorse this stopgap bill and delay a more substantial funding battle until after Democrats take over the House in the new year. Then at least Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the likely incoming House speaker, could be scapegoated for any shutdown-related embarrassment.

Accordingly, the Senate passed the temporary funding measure, by voice vote, on Dec. 19. The House was expected to vote on it the following day, and the bill was anticipated to sail through with broad support in both parties.

Before then, Trump did what he always does: He suddenly changed his mind.

Egged on by Fox News and Ann Coulter, he announced he was torpedoing any funding bill — including this pitiful temporary measure — unless it included money for his precious border wall. And so outgoing Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., decided not to bring the Senate-passed version of the funding bill to the floor at all.

It’s precisely this sort of flip-flopping — and the cowardly congressional accommodation of said flip-flopping — that is slowly fraying the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

We’re stuck in an indefinite government shutdown now that Congress has apparently disbanded until after the new year. Maybe the Trump administration will find ways to preserve many of the Obamacare provisions that the public loves, despite refusing to defend them in court; maybe not.

Both the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and NAFTA 2.0 remain in limbo, as do the steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico that Trump promised to repeal once a deal was signed. Same with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War-era arms-control agreement. And so on.

Trump has managed to convince himself, and his base, that he’s a brilliant negotiator, smarter than all the experts — including his Federal Reserve chairman, the many minions tasked with negotiating and renegotiating trade deals, his secretaries of state, defense or treasury, or really all of the “best people” he has selected to work for him.

His gut tells him more than anybody else’s brain can ever tell him, he maintains. But his gut seems to have a perpetual case of indigestion, given how often it flips.

The real question is why congressional leaders, including Ryan, repeatedly cave to Trump’s latest tweets and fleeting fancies instead of writing him off as the flake that he is. Why not at least try to whip the veto-proof votes — for a budget, really for any piece of legislation — necessary to simply govern without him? The only thing you can rely on Trump for is unreliability.

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/12/30/trump-did-what-he-always-does-and-changed-his-mind-why-was-congress-surprised/

Trump lost.

This is a democracy, not a dictatorship. Trump simply doesn't have the votes, or the public support for his precious wall.

There will be no border wall. There will almost certainly not be another shutdown (and if there is it will be quick). I think he will declare his stupid little national emergency over the best wishes of his advisers (the intelligent ones at least). It will fail in the courts and piss off people in the military who think these funds should be used for them.

I AGREE.
I AGREE.
I AGREE.

America lost, not Trump. He's still President and he still has the support of the Republican party. You are right that it's a Democracy, but it's also a government of three branches and Trump is one of those branches.

There will be a border wall.

He's doing a clown dance about that idiot wall he promised voters. It won't stop illegal immigration, and it won't stop drugs coming in. There is a huge and silent lobby for illegal immigrants to do stoop labor. Most drugs come through legal border crossing points:

Story at USA Today

Story from The Washington Post

Story from Tucson-dot-com

Story at Houston Chronicle

So, are you gonna pull a Plump on us, and call all of those sources "fake news?" The only fake news we really see is when Plump's lips are moving.

I find this hilarious, though. Plump had a Republican majority in Congress before the mid-term election, but didn't get money for his moronic border wall . . . hmmmm . . . maybe this is just more of his typical smoke and mirrors bullsh*t.

We'll see.

As if he needed that?

That remains to be seen. All that seems clear right now is the Democrats won't be getting a DACA fix in exchange for a border wall.

I'm highly intelligent and I advise him to declare a national emergency.

That remains to be seen. So far all of the supposed legal arguments against it have been pretty silly.

Only people who already suffer from TDS will be pissed off.

I acknowledge all the issues Democrats are concerned with, but when does it ever result in common ground progress toward discussing mutually-acceptable solutions?

Yes, sustainability and climate restoration are important but carbon taxation and fiscal stimulus aren't going to stop the unsustainability economy; they will just cause it to grow more.

Yes, there are historical injustices but redistribution and economic equalization doesn't solve those or prevent current and future discrimination.

Yes, health care should be universally accessible and affordable, but insurance and especially mandatory insurance are making it less affordable and forcing people into more contractual obligations and regulations instead of increasing their liberty.

Socialism generally chips away at liberty. You can't regulate people into doing the right thing. They have to understand right and wrong and be willing to put effort and sacrifice into doing right and avoiding wrong. Burden-shifting, blame, etc. don't work toward solutions, only more problems.

Trump doesn't have the support of the Republican party. This week you will likely see McConnell advance a bill to the Senate that does not include the 5.7 billion wall funds Trump is asking for. The Democrats are now playing offense, asking for caps to the number of ICE detainees.

This bill will pass, and Republicans will privately pressure Trump to sign it. This is because another shutdown hurts Republicans far more than it hurts Democrats. The Democrats have the winning hand.

If they can't agree on a bill, they will pass a CR to give them more time. There will be no wall.

Well, there will be no DACA fix. It remains to be seen if the courts will block the wall.

Has anyone come up with a plausible legal argument against the wall yet? It really helps when you go to court if you actually have a case to present.

Really, for all of your intelligence you can't come up with a "plausible legal argument" that would stop Trump from declaring a national emergency to fund his wall?

It is right there in article 1 of a document called the US Constitution (I nassume you have heard of the Constitution).

Do I really have to spell out the separation of powers for you?

This has been my complaint as well. Though I don't find it hilarious, just frustrating.

I'm not trying to come up with one. The Democrats are going to have to come up with their legal arguments without my help.

If you have a separation of powers argument against the wall, feel free to present it.

It seems so obvious Oralloy. The Congress has the constitutional power to fund the wall or to stop the wall by not funding it.

The national emergency is a way for the president to do an end run around the Congress. He may have the right to declare a national emergency, he almost certainly does not have a right to use this to get around Congress.

This legal principle is pretty easy to understand.... Trump will be shot down again and will whine about judges again.

Of course the legal issues are not the only problem with the national emergency scheme.

Trump is going to have to specify from which military projects he is going to divert money ....

There is a good reason that smart Republicans are warning (and begging) Trump not to do this. It will be politically disastrous to Republicans (before losing in court anyway).

You are defining "smart" by whether someone opposes the President. That's pretty silly.

The only political disaster that I perceive is the left squandering yet another opportunity to get a permanent fix for DACA.

So your legal argument is that diverting money during national emergencies is unconstitutional?

I don't know that that's going to be very persuasive at the Supreme Court.

What "again"? Has the Supreme Court shot him down a first time?

And it remains to be seen whether he will be shot down this time around. The legal argument that you advance doesn't sound very persuasive.

I think this whole argument is silly. The concepts are so basic the only explanation for your inability to understand them is that you are being ideologically blind.

Just watch what happens. Smarter Republicans are trying to talk Trump down from this scheme. I hope he does it. There is no credible legal expert who says this will stand up in court and many independent experts who say it won't.