https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/the-shutdown/
The Shutdown
By Richard Fernandez
As the government shutdown took its toll, Washington DC assumed the unfamiliar aspect of a city going through hard times. “It’s like a ghost city — totally dead. ... When other parts of the country suffered during the Great Recession, the area around the nation’s capital boomed.” But now the shoe is on the other foot.
As the country nears the end of its third week of a government shutdown, the consequences of Washington’s political dysfunction are landing right on the city’s doorstep. The Washington metro area is home to the largest number of federal workers in the country, and as their paychecks begin to stop, the negative effects threaten to spread across the region.
This is an unusual problem for a region that boasts one of the country’s richest, strongest economies, powered by government spending and a large, stable federal work force. ...
as long as the shutdown ended before February, the economic effect on the overall region would be minimal ... the longer the shutdown went on, the higher chance it would cause more lasting damage.
The question everybody is asking is: who will blink first? Trump or Congress. It seems apparent that neither can afford to. It has been evident for some time that the Left will settle for nothing else but the president’s head. Within a few short months special counsel Mueller will publish his report and the Democratic dominated house will take it to impeachment. While conviction by a Republican senate seems unlikely, Donald Trump has nothing to lose by hanging tough on the wall issue, knowing if he blinks the circling pack will be upon him in a moment.
The Democrats appear to be equally committed. Nancy Pelosi announced there will be no retreat from the position of not funding a border wall. “President Donald Trump abruptly walked out of a closed-door meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday in the White House Situation Room after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she wouldn’t fund his border wall even if he ended the government shutdown.”
Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post lays out 5 ways the government shutdown could end.
1 Trump simply caves;
2 Congress overrides Trump’s veto of any funding bill that does not include a border wall;
3 Congress gives Trump a down payment on the wall but not the full amount the president has asked for;
4 “The Democrats could revive their deal from last year that would have exchanged $25 billion toward a border wall for a path to citizenship for Dreamers”;
5 “Neither side folds and the agencies remain shut down through the end of 2020, when there’s a presidential election”.
CNN reports that Republican senators are trying to work out a deal as envisaged by Options 3 and 4. But given the life and death stakes of the conflict Options 2 and 5 are not inconceivable. No deal but victory or defeat by a trial of strength.
#TheAiringOfGrievances
#Festivus
I think he’s going to have to declare the emergency and they are going to have to let him. They can’t back down now, but if he went ahead and did it then he could sign funding bills.
I note that none of these alternatives result in a win for POTUS.