Update 1/19/18: Trump and House Republican leaders convinced enough members of the Freedom Caucus to go along a temporary funding measure which includes 6 years funding for CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) and the bill passed in the House. The reason – so House Republicans can say “Hey we passed something, but the Democrats in the Senate wouldn’t so it’s their fault that the government was shut down.”
Let me point out a couple of facts: 1) Just yesterday Trump sent out a tweet saying he was against that very bill. 2) Yesterday the leaders of the Freedom Caucus came out and said that their caucus definitely would not vote for that same bill. 3) At least some Republicans will join the Democrats in voting against the measure the Senate so it’s going to be hard to blame the Democrats exclusively shutdown no matter how hard the Republicans try. 4) Prominent Senate Republicans are still implying that Trump’s negotiating tactics (or lack there of) and his continued waffling on what kind of deal he will accept are making it near impossible to successfully negotiate a deal
House Republication leadership added CHIP funding to the temporary funding bill to try to entice Democrats to provide the votes needed to pass the bill without the votes of the Freedom Caucus. When that failed because Democrats refused to go along, House Republican leaders urged Trump to convince the Freedom caucus members to vote for the bill instead. Remember, this is the same bill that Trump said was a non starter yesterday. Yet Trump agreed to push the bill that he disagreed with and started putting pressure on the Freedom Caucus members to vote for it.. The only reason the Freedom Caucus members went along is because they were convinced that the bill would never reach the President’s desk. If they had believe that the bill would pass in the Senate, there was no way they would have voted for it.
So if a government shutdown cannot be avoided, the Republicans now think that they have a fig leaf to deflect blame on to the Democrats. But it is just a fig leaf and it isn’t big enough to hide what they want it to hide. It is clear that if Republican Leadership in the House and the Senate were to put a clean DACA up for a vote, it would pass in both chambers. 80% of American voters want the Dreamers protected and there are enough Republicans willing to vote to protect them to pass clean DACA bill in both houses of Congress. Trump would have no choice but to sign it. Therefore, Trump and the Republicans are blatantly holding the Dreamers hostage to extract Democratic concessions on other immigrant issues. This blatant abuse of power will not be lost on the American people.
Update 1/18/18: When I first wrote this article January 11th (7 days ago), I must admit that I had some concerns that if a government shutdown occurred over DACA, the majority of the voting public might conceivably hold Congressional Democrats responsible. That in return might decrease the momentum of the Blue Wave we are expecting in the 2018 Congressional elections and in the process decrease the chances of a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate. However, given the extremely strong support present in the electorate for the Dreamers, at that time I still believed that standing on our principles was worth the risk.
I still do. However, I now believe that much of the risk that Congressional Democrats will bear an inordinate portion of the blame for a government shutdown if one occurs has been dissipated, and we have Donald Trump to thank for that. The “Great Negotiator” has gone out of his way to blow up the deals that both houses of Congress have crafted to avoid the shutdown. As a result, I am convinced that it is very likely that the blame for a shutdown, if one occurs, has shifted away from Congressional Democrats.
On the Senate side Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) lead a bipartisan group of Senators in crafting a deal which, in addition to providing government funding, would have decreased the number of legal immigrants able to enter the country each year and give Trump the resources to start his “wall” in exchange for protecting the Dreamers. Despite early indications from the White House that the compromise might be workable, in a widely published meeting Trump used racially charged remarks peppered with obscenities to shoot down the deal.
In the House Republicans intended to include six years of funding for the the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHAP) as part of a bill as a to keep the government running as a sweetener to attempt to attract Democratic votes for the proposal. Republican House leaders believe those Democrat votes were needed because far right Republican members of the “Freedom Caucus” have stated that they will not vote for any temporary spending bill. They claim that continually kicking the can down the road is having a detrimental effect on military spending. However, Trump also blew up that attempt at bipartisan cooperation with an early morning Tweet: “CHIP should be part of a long-term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!”
Republican and Democratic leaders in both house of Congress are still scrambling to come up with a compromise which will prevent a government shutdown tonight, but Trump’s meddling has made their task extremely difficult, if not impossible. While Republicans control both Congressional chambers, their leaders are reluctant to agree to a compromise bill that Trump will not sign and as Senator Mitch McConnell expressed yesterday, Trump has not made it clear what elements he will and will not support in the funding legislation.
Regardless, my point is that the situation has changed radically in the last week. No longer can Congressional Democrats be blamed by rational voters if a government shutdown can not be avoided. In fact even some Republicans in Congress have at least made what might be interpreted as reasonable efforts to avoid having the government run out of money to operate. If a shutdown cannot be avoided, one person is likely to be held responsible by the majority of American voters – Donald Trump – and rightly so.
Original Article: In October of 2013 the Republicans, who enjoyed a majority in the House of Representatives, essentially shut down the US Government for 17 days. At the time I believed that it one of the most stupid political moves that I had seen in my rather long lifetime. Now I have come to the difficult conclusion that Senate Democrats should come forward with genuine threat to shut down the government again if necessary. I can totally understand if you think those two stances are inconsistent at best or totally disingenuous at worst, but let me explain.
In 2013 the Republican controlled House and the Democratic controlled Senate could not agree on the language of Continuing Appropriations Resolution which was necessary to provide funding to keep the government running. As result of the impasse, funding dried up and 800,000 federal employees were furloughed indefinitely while another 1.3 million had to report to work without knowing when or if they would ever be paid. All “non-essential” federal government services were discontinued from October 1st through October 17th. Eventually Republicans relented with 86 of their 231 Representatives joined all 198 Democrats to pass the unencumbered bill in the House.
That government shutdown was an unmitigated disaster, but let’s remember why that disaster occurred. Back 2013 it was Senator Ted Cruz and conservative groups like Heritage Action that encouraged House Republicans to include language in government funding bill which would have defunded the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The Republican majority in the House passed the bill with the Obamacare defunding language and sent on to the Senate. The Senate then stripped the bill of that language and passed the bill without it. The day before funding for the government was set to run out, the Republicans in the House stubbornly reinserted the Obamacare defunding language and passed their version of the bill again. Under immense pressure from the many sectors, eventually the Republicans relented and 86 of their 231 Representatives joined all 198 Democrats to pass the unencumbered bill in the House. President Obama then signed the bill putting the government back in business.
So four years ago House Republicans shut down government so they could deprive over 13 million Americans of affordable health insurance. Without that insurance some of those people would have died and many others would have been deprived of preventive and timely medical care which would have prevented their conditions from severely degrading. On the other hand if Democrats threaten to withhold their Senate votes on a government funding bill as the January 19th funding deadline approaches, it will be to protect 800,000 “Dreamers” from deportation – individuals who were brought to this country illegally as children through no fault of their own. Let’s also remember that it is necessary to enact this DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) legislation only because Donald Trump eliminated protection for the Dreamers previously provided by the Obama administration.
Nor are the Democrats in Congress alone in their determination to protect the Dreamers; 34 Republicans in the House sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan urging him to act immediately on a “permanent legislative solution for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients before the end of the year.” In the Senate, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced legislation in early December to protect the Dreamers. That bill is co-sponsored by four additional Republican Senators. All of these Republican Congressmen understand the need to be on the “right side” of this issue.
Obviously then there are more than enough Republicans in both the House and the Senate willing to join with the Democrats in order to pass DACA legislation unencumbered by other political considerations. So it should be an easy thing pass a bill which gives the Dreamers protection. Nope. The problem is that Republicans control both houses of Congress so Republican leaders determine what pieces of legislation comes up for a vote and which do not. They have been unwilling to bring to the floor legislation protecting the Dreamers without extracting concessions on border security from the Democrats. In addition, though Trump continues to talk out of both sides of his mouth, it is apparent that he wants funding for his impractical “wall” in exchange for signing DACA legislation.
While it was the Republicans who shut down the government in 2013 and it is the Democrats who find themselves in the position of threatening to do so today to protect the Dreamers. One thing is clear – in both cases the Democrats have chosen the correct and just side of both issues. In both cases their only intention is to protect innocent people while the Republicans are callously trying to score political points.
Time is running out for the Dreamers. As early as the end of March they face the possibility of deportation to countries where they have no roots, where the don’t speak the language, where they don’t understand the customs, and where they economic survival would be in doubt. They have grown up with our children, attended our schools, and some are even serving in our military. They are as American as you and me and with our other young people they are the best hope for the future of this country. If it takes standing up to the Donald Trump and the Republican leaders in Congress and threatening to shut down the government to protect them, so be it!
The American people are behind us on this issue. According to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll 73 percent of the voters want legislation protecting Dreamers from deportation while 54 percent of voters want Congress to establish a path to citizenship for DACA recipients. On the other hand, most polls show that the majority of Americans don’t want their tax money used to pay for a wall. (Wasn’t Mexico supposed to pay for it.) Even Congressional Republicans are unenthusiastic about funding a wall. In a recent USA Today poll of all of the members of Congress, only 25% of the Republicans said that they would be willing to vote for even a $1.6 billion down payment on the border wall pitched by Trump during the summer.
So I urge our Democratic Senators and Representatives in Congress to stand fast and do what is right. If it takes compromising on the funding of “border security measures” to protect the Dreamers, that’s okay as long as the legislation makes it abundantly clear that the funding cannot be used in manner to build a “wall”. They need to force the Republicans to include protection for the Dreamers as part of funding bill. Then Trump can decide whether to sign the bill or take the entire responsibility for a government shutdown. In 2013 Republicans used the threat of a government shutdown to try to take away the funding for the health care for millions of American. In my opinion it would be poetic justice for the Congressional Democrats to use a similar threat to protect hundreds of thousands of innocent young people.
Cajun Updated 1/18/2018