Tag: #TrumpShutDown

Rather than consider bills to reopen government, McConnell keeps Senate arguing about Israel

Mitch McConnell, R-KY., 2018. Credit: J. Scott Applewhite, AP

The GOP-controlled Senate may take its third vote on proceeding to a likely unconstitutional bill that won’t reopen government.

America’s longest-ever partial government shutdown gets longer and more harmful by the minute, but the one man with the power to bypass the president and resolve the situation is too busy focusing of arguing about Middle East politics to do anything.

Monday marks the 24th day of the government shutdown, making it the longest in U.S. history by three days. Trump’s refusal to fund large portions of the government unless Congress gives him billions of dollars to pay for a border wall he’d repeatedly promised would be funded entirely by Mexico has already cost the nation’s economy billions of dollars, left hundreds of thousands of federal workers struggling to make ends meet without paychecks, and left vital government services like food safety inspection effectively on pause.

The Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives (along with a dozen fed-up Republicans) has passed multiple bills to reopen all or parts of the government immediately. While these bills could become law with a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate, notwithstanding any potential Trump veto, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has repeatedly blocked attempts to even give them a vote on the senate floor, calling them a waste of time.

View the complete January 14 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

As border wall impasse continues, Trump learns that his powers of persuasion have limits

Credit: Joshua Roberts, Reuters

Like so many presidents before him came to understand, the power of the bully pulpit is vastly overrated.

Over the past week, President Donald Trump has pulled out all the stops to seize the upper hand in the ongoing government shutdown fight. He’s made his case in a prime-time Oval Office address. He’s flown to McAllen, Texas, the site of his much desired border wall — where he met with border patrol agents and vowed, “The buck stops with everybody.” He called a meeting with top Democratic lawmakers, only to subsequently leave that meeting in a huff, declaring it to be “a waste of time.”

All in all, Trump’s week has been brash, extravagant, and unpredictable. In other words, right in his reality-television wheelhouse. And yet none of it has done much to move the needle in his favor in a significant way.

Who would have thought that a dyed-in-the-wool bully couldn’t make the best use of the bully pulpit? Well, if you’ve been following politics for longer than the past week, you’d already know what Trump is, perhaps, beginning to learn: The powers of presidential persuasion are vastly overrated.

View the complete January 14 article by Jason Linkins on the ThinkProgress website here.

The Wall Is Not Popular. (And Neither Is Trump.)

By The New York Times | Source: Fox News Voter Analysis. No FNVA survey was conducted in Alaska, Louisiana, North Carolina or Kentucky.

The border wall remains popular only with the president’s base, and shutting down the government over the issue seems unlikely to win new fans.

By insisting on a border wall, President Trump is emphasizing an issue that may be popular with his base but seems unlikely to attract new supporters.

There has been little polling since the government shutdown began last month, but what there is indicates that voters oppose a border wall, blame the president for the shutdown, believe the shutdown will have adverse consequences and don’t believe the government should be shut down over the wall.

The wall has consistently been unpopular, with voters opposed by around a 20-point margin over months of national surveys. That makes it even less popular than the president himself.

View the complete January 12 article by Nate Cohn on The New York Times website here.

A 1970 U.S.-Mexico treaty shows why Trump’s border wall is absurd

The 2008 Ri Grande flood, near Presido, TX. Credit: National Park Service

Barriers built in the Rio Grande floodplain will either wash away during floods or become dams that worsen the flooding.

Much of the government has been shut down for more than 16 days because President Donald Trump insists that Congress fund a border wall that is both a terrible idea and illegal.

The shutdown is because Trump demands extending the existing border walls and barriers to vast areas that make no sense largely because they are in the Rio Grande floodplain. Building barriers in that floodplain was such a problematic idea that a 1970 treaty between United States and Mexico explicitly bans them.

“The president really doesn’t understand the issue,” House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “But we have actually already built a wall across much of the border, and all border security experts that I talk to say, where a wall makes sense, it’s already been built.”

View the complete January 7 article by Joe Romm on the ThinkProgress website here.

Mitch McConnell could end the shutdown. But he’s sitting this one out.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Jan. 10 blocked a motion by Senate Democrats to vote on House-passed bills to end the partial government shutdown. (The Washington Post)

President Trump is not the only person in Washington who could end this government shutdown now.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could bring a “clean” funding bill to the floor, free up his GOP caucus to support it and could quite possibly secure enough votes to override a presidential veto.

McConnell already did it once, when he believed he had Trump’s blessing. Before the holidays he allowed a vote to keep the government running until Feb. 8, to avoid a shutdown and buy more time to negotiate Trump’s demand for border wall funding. It passed easily.

View the complete January 11 article by Colby Itkowitz on The Washington Post website here.

DAY 25: Coast Guard Members Won’t Get Paid Because Of Trump Shutdown

Members of the Coast Guard will now miss their paychecks today as the Trump Shutdown enters its 25th day. The Trump administration also admitted that the shutdown would cost twice as much as originally expected. Here’s the latest:

Coast Guard members will miss their paychecks today, and the Trump Shutdown could soon hinder mission readiness.

CBS News: “About 42,000 Coast Guard members are working without pay through the shutdown, having been deemed ‘essential’ employees. An additional 10,000 civilian workers have been furloughed. The service managed to find enough money to make payroll on Dec. 31, but the continued lapse in funding means workers won’t receive paychecks Tuesday. Last week, the Coast Guard said a prolonged shutdown could eventually hinder ‘mission readiness.’”

The Trump administration estimates the Trump Shutdown will cost twice as much as originally forecasted.

CNBC: “The Trump administration now estimates that the cost of the government shutdown will be twice as steep as originally forecast. The original estimate that the partial shutdown would subtract 0.1 percentage point from growth every two weeks has now been doubled to a 0.1 percentage point subtraction every week, according to an official who asked not to be named.” Continue reading “DAY 25: Coast Guard Members Won’t Get Paid Because Of Trump Shutdown”

House votes to reopen Interior, EPA as shutdown fight wages on

 

The House approved legislation that would fund and reopen the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency and Forest Service in an 240-179 vote on Friday, the latest effort by Democrats to put pressure on Republicans and President Trump to end the partial shutdown.

Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the measure.

It’s the fourth measure approved by the Democratic-controlled House this week. Democrats are voting on a series of bills to open up the parts of the government closed since Dec. 22, which has left about 800,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay.

View the complete January 11 article by Juliegrace Brufke on the Hill website here.

How a government shutdown affects the economy

Parts of the federal government have been closed since midnight on Dec. 22, making it the longest shutdown on record. It’s also the third since President Donald Trump took office.

The immediate and most visible impact of a shutdown is in the government’s day-to-day operations. Many national museums and parks are closed, immigration hearings are being postponed and the Food and Drug Administration isn’t doing routine inspections of domestic food-processing facilities, to name a few examples. Of the 800,000 federal employees affected by the shutdown, 420,000 are working without pay while the rest have been furloughed.

But beyond the individual workers and families affected, could a short or lengthy shutdown affect the broader U.S. economy as well?

View the complete article by Scott R. Baker on the Conversation website here.

Airline safety ‘eroding’ as shutdown drags on

Grant Mulkey of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and others with Air Traffic and pilot unions protest the government shutdown Thursday on Capitol Hill. | Credit: Andrew Harnik, AP Photo

Unpaid air traffic controllers, TSA agents put pressure on the White House to re-open government

Virtually every segment of the aviation industry — from airlines to airports — is ramping up pressure on lawmakers and the White House to reopen the government, suggesting that a prolonged shutdown could seriously harm passengers and business.

Air traffic controllers and other aviation industry workers reinforced the point with a rally outside the Capitol on Thursday, saying safety suffers when air traffic controllers, baggage screeners and Federal Aviation Administration technicians and inspectors are either furloughed or forced to work without pay as the shutdown enters its third week.

Beyond the obvious concern of having an air traffic controller distracted by worries about personal finances while performing a high-stress job, many are also concerned about falling behind on everything from aircraft inspections to training the next generation of air traffic controllers, since the FAA controller academy is shuttered.

View the complete January 10 article by Brianna Gurciullo, Sam Mintz and Stephanie Beasley on the Politico website here.

House passes bills to fund Transportation Dept., HUD, Agriculture

The Democratic-led House passed a standalone spending measure Thursday to provide funding for the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and other agencies.

The House voted 244-180 to approve the clean funding measure. Twelve Republicans bucked party lines to join Democrats in voting for the bill on the floor.

The chamber then voted 243-183 to pass a separate measure to fund the Department of Agriculture and related agencies through Sept. 30, with 10 Republicans joining Democrats to vote for the measure.

View the complete January 10 article by Juliegrace Brufke on The Hill website here.