In a sudden move, Donald Trump has agreed to funding the government until February 15 without getting his money for the wall. So the can gets kicked down the road until February 15 and we get to go through this whole rigmarole again.
BREAKING NEWS: The House and Senate will vote on legislation to reopen the government until Feb. 15. During that period, lawmakers will discuss funds for border security and President Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The outcome was a win for Democrats and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had insisted on no negotiations until the government was reopened.
After delivering his statement (see the link above) where he blathered on about how there would be an unbelievable drop in crime if the wall were built (does anyone, even his supporters, really believe this?), Trump left without taking questions, which is not surprising since this was a big defeat for him.
What prompted this sudden move? Maybe it was the shutting down for a while today of La Guardia airport, one of the busiest in the nation, because of lack of sufficient air traffic controllers. Nothing gets people’s attention than not being able to fly. Also, l4,000 of the 26,000 IRS workers ordered back to work without pay did not show up.
It will be interesting to see what the people whom Trump fears most, the Fox News audience, thinks of Trump’s defeat on this signature issue that has acquired a significance that is completely out of proportion to its actual merits. The early reviews have been brutal. The person whose approval he seems to want most in not a happy camper.
Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 25, 2019
Pelosi is mercilessly mocking Trump.
Pelosi, asked how Trump will handle backdown on reopening government without wall money, gestures toward her office decorations: “we could plant these flowers along the border and he’d say, ‘I got my wall.’ “
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) January 25, 2019
A general consensus quickly emerged that Trump was a big loser.
Though Trump spoke defiantly, the consensus view from officials of both parties on Capitol Hill was the Trump’s clock had been cleaned. The president had insisted to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that he would not sign any bill to open the government that did not include $5.7 billion in wall funding. But amid sagging poll numbers and partial closures of critical government functions—including, on Friday morning, flights in and out of LaGuardia Airport in New York—Trump committed on Friday to doing just that.
The resolution seemed destined to provide only a brief reprieve from the political acrimony that has paralyzed Washington in recent weeks as it would only last three weeks. Though at a lunch briefing with reporters and columnists on Friday, Pelosi said she felt optimistic that there would not be a shutdown again, owing to the likelihood that Trump will have recognized how politically damaging the current standoff had been.
Prepare your self for one of two options: Trump goes into hiding and sulks or he goes into rage tweeting about anything to take attention away from his ignominious defeat.
As I mentioned on the previous post, this is why Nancy Pelosi was the best choice for speaker. She made Orange Yeller own this whole debacle and came out the winner. Yes, it can be shut down again in three weeks but the Hamberdler might not be so quick this time to let it happen. Of course I’m probably wrong about that because he’s not a rational person.
Even if it’s shut down again mid-February, it’s a massive win for our country. Paychecks and back pay will be given to suffering government workers.
It also shows just how weak and stupid of a negotiator Trump is.
About time.
The government will be paying for this for a very long time to come. A few days, a delay on one paycheck, these things you can make up to people and even if things aren’t great, people can manage to survive. But blowing past an entire month of not meeting your obligations to employees is huge. Especially for people who have some legal obligation to show up even without pay. Look for investigative reporting sometime soon about the amount of employees the government lost to these antics.
Unless they pass something in a hurry to give backpay to contractors as well, those people all got the shaft. I wouldn’t be surprised if many found other jobs. I would expect contract negotiations after this to get more expensive. Because contracting is such a lousy racket* the extra money probably won’t go to the actual employees in future shutdowns but is likely to instead get pocketed by execs on good years and some small percentage to go toward ad buys to pick up new contract employees once the government reopens.
* I have worked as a contractor for most of the last 8 years at several different companies and through several different recruiters and staffing firms. The actual people I deal with from these firms seem no better or worse to me than any other group of professionals but it’s still obvious the whole industry is sketchy. The company I’m doing work for gets paid what they think I’m worth, then an entirely different set of execs and corporate owners dip in to get their fill. The way our economy works now it’s like having two sets of parasites: one from the upper reaches of the company you work at, the other from the contracting firm that placed you there.
It would (will?) be “interesting” to see what happens if the government shuts down again and starts lurching through more on/off cycles. This would make the US the world’s first pulsed government. The main application would probably to achieve the much-coveted “small government” by attrition.