Trump Calls Schumer's Bluff: "If There's A Shutdown, There's A Shutdown... Democrats Would Be To Bl

Zero Hedge ^ | April 27, 2017

[Yosemitest]

(title truncated, full title Trump Calls Schumer's Bluff: "If There's A Shutdown, There's A Shutdown... Democrats Would Be To Blame")

With Democrats seemingly unsatisfied with Republicans dropping border wall funding and adjusting on Obamacare-related items, it appears President Trump is calling Schumer's and Pelosi's bluff, proclaiming"If there's a shutdown, there's a shutdown," adding that Democrats would be to blame if the federal government was left unfunded.

Schumer today:

*SCHUMER: TRUMP CONCESSIONS BRING SPENDING DEAL CLOSER TO FINISH

*SCHUMER SAYS 'SOME STICKING POINTS' LEFT ON SPENDING BILL TALKS

*SCHUMER SAYS REVISED GOP HEALTH CARE BILL 'WORSE' THAN INITIAL

*SCHUMER SAYS ISSUE OF POISON PILL RIDERS STILL OUTSTANDING


Pelosi added:



*HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADER PELOSI SAYS WALL FUNDING ONE ISSUE

*PELOSI: UNCERTAINTY RE OBAMACARE COST-SHARING PAYMT ALSO ISSUE

*PELOSI: TYING STOPGAP SPENDING TO HEALTH BILL WOULD BE STUPID


And so, as Reuters reports, President Donald Trump downplayed the severity of a potential government shutdown, making it clear who will be to blame...



"We'll see what happens. If there's a shutdown, there's a shutdown," Trump told Reuters in an interview, adding that Democrats would be to blame if the federal government was left unfunded.

Trump added that a shutdown would be a "very negative thing" but that his administration was prepared if it was necessary.


As part of the budget negotiations, Democrats have called for financial support to prop up Puerto Rico's Medicaid program covering health insurance for the poor, but many Republicans are opposed to the idea.
Trump also said it would be unfair to offer a debt bailout to Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, because it was unfair to people in U.S. states.

"I don't think that's fair to the people of Iowa, and I don't think it's fair to the people of Wisconsin and Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania that we should be bailing out Puerto Rico for billions and billions of dollars," Trump said.
" No I don't think that's fair."

Notably, while equity markets are whistling complecentlypast the graveyard, USA sovereign risk has surged back to its highest (relative to Germany) since Trump's election as the threat of a government shutdown gets priced into a non-manipulated market...

[Yosemitest]

Someone should do a parity rap of "The Schubert Shutdown Socialists Shuffle" with animated cartoon characters !

[vooch]

pray that Trump stands up to the RINOs and drains the swamp

He needs to unchain Wilbur Ross & Carl Ichan this weekend

800,000 inessential federal employees
1,000,000 consultants

is a start

[Cowboy Bob]

If the government shuts down, make sure that its the Democrats who suffer...not Americans. No cutting off Police and Fire protection. Just stop payment on the welfare checks.

[Gene Eric]

>> The Schubert Shutdown Socialists Shuffle

No need to poison Schubert.

[Yosemitest]

Damn autocorrect, you can't take your eyes off of it for a second.

[Sacajaweau]

Schumer’s got his big boy pants on. But they don’t fit...and they’re falling down again. Dems voted tp stop the shutdown in droves.

[blackdog]

Why share anything with the democrats? Just tell them they have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it. They can relate to that.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

The widely welcomed self-destruction of the Democrat Party continues unabated!!! I luv it!!!

[Moonman62]

Where’s the media that usually whines and moans about obstructionism?

[ronnie raygun]

The rats and some republicans use this as an extortion tactic to get what they want

[Yosemitest]

The GOP Has a Nuclear Option ...:

Rick Klein and Shushannah Walsh:
“Want to really blow up the Senate – and fast?
A new proposal is emerging that would likely do just that, and it has nothing to do with Senate Democrats’ vow to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
A proposal is being pushed by some Senate Republicans that would seek to ensure that a House-passed bill could be passed intact by only a simple majority of senators.”

“How would that work?
Well, the vice president, of course, is the president of the Senate.
The thinking goes
that if the Senate parliamentarian ruled that parts of the bill can’t be folded into budget reconciliation, Vice President Mike Pence could simply overrule that.
Sen. Rand Paul wants the White House to make that commitment now:
‘That alone, I think, would break the logjam,’ he told reporters Thursday.
Perhaps, but that’s not all it would break.
This would be the executive branch’s changing the rules of the upper legislative body.
Filibusters could be broken, perhaps in any circumstance, at the whim of the vice president.
In honor of a certain former veep, that would be a BFD.”

Here's more from an excerpt from another source about the option of "The Nuclear Option for Legislation in the Senate":

Cruz Pushes Obamacare Repeal Gambit That Could Roil the Senate

... Cruz’s answer:
lean on Vice President Mike Pence’s gavel to dodge those procedural limits and broaden the legislation’s scope.

It’s not at all clear whether Cruz’s colleagues will go along.
The move relies on a radical interpretation of the vice president’s constitutional role as presiding officer of the Senate,
where he could step in and effectively overrule the chamber’s parliamentarian.
It would resemble the so-called nuclear option of ending filibusters ...

... Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, the conservative who unseated then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 primary, told reporters he doesn’t buy leadership’s excuse that they can’t pursue a far bolder plan.

He said Ryan is overstating the case that existing rules can’t allow an insurance overhaul. “He wants to be respectful of Senate rules, I do not,” Brat said.

“From what I understand,” Brat said, “whoever’s sitting in the chair has authority over the parliamentarian.
So they can rewrite the rules.”

To speed passage of an Obamacare replacement -- and circumvent Democratic opposition, Republicans opted for a budgetary procedure called reconciliation
that requires only a simple majority in the Senate,
but only if the legislation has minimal effect on the deficit.

GOP leaders, including Ryan, have said this is limiting their ability to include provisions popular with conservatives like selling insurance across state lines.

The Texas senator, who had dinner with Trump this week, said Ryan and Senate GOP leaders are wrong.

“You don’t need to override the parliamentarian or get a new parliamentarian.
It is the vice president who rules,” he told reporters Thursday.

Having Pence rule against established norms for what is allowed in a reconciliation bill would undo decades of Senate tradition of deferring to the parliamentarian’s rulings.
It could also potentially allow both parties far wider latitude in the future to avoid a 60-vote threshold for all sorts of provisions that don’t directly impact spending or taxes.

Representative Trent Franks of Arizona, another conservative, said
trying to craft an Obamacare repeal bill to meet the Senate’s current interpretation of its rules is "untenable."

"... If you get the job done he looks a little differently on the other side," he said.

... "Under the Budget Act of 1974, which is what governs reconciliation, it is the presiding officer, the vice president of the United States, who rules what is permissible on reconciliation and what is not,” Cruz said.
“And that is a conversation I have been having with a number of my colleagues.” ...

So in ending the DemocRATS 'political war', let me end my comment by stating, "It's time to NUKE THE DemocRATS !"

[bert]

Nobody gives a damn about Puerto Rico. The precedent for illinois and California is what really matters

[Georgia Girl 2]

Stop blaming the Dems and blame the RINO’s.

[BobL]

The thing is that the Dems are TOTALLY BLUFFING when it comes to shutting down the government over the WALL.

They know they’re on the wrong side of this issue in the first place, and they know that Trump will be directing resources to make it especially painful for them...including their government workers. They also know that Trump can simply say “NO BACK PAY”, which will end any shutdown virtually overnight, and on Trump’s terms.

Trump has ALL THE CARDS - too bad he’s still listening to Ivanka and Jarad - rather than Bannon.

[Gene Eric]

Even your software knows Schumer needs to be corrected.

[Yosemitest]

Now that's funny !