Trump Signals Shift on Wall Funding to Avert Government Shutdown
Of course. Democrats are so against the wall for 100 to 1000 reasons that they would have no problem at all shutting down the government rather than agreeing to it. And because it is budgetary 60 votes are required. Republicans cannot use the nuclear option.
1 day ago ... President Donald Trump signaled he may be willing to wait a little longer to secure federal funding for his controversial border wall, a shift that ...
11 hours ago ...Trump signals delay on border wall funding to avoid government shutdown ... his demand for funding of his Mexican border wall to avoid a shutdown of the ... to pass the legislation, welcomed Trump's reported shift on the wall.
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Trump Signals Shift on Wall Funding to Avert Government Shutdown
by
Billy House
,
Laura Litvan
, and
Erik Wasson
Agency funding may dry up Saturday in government funding clash
Trump aide says he’s willing to wait on wall financing
Funding Bill Teeters on Trump's Border Wall
President Donald Trump may be willing to wait until
September or possibly next year to secure federal funding for his
controversial border wall, a shift that could make it possible for
Congress to finish work on spending legislation in time to avoid a
government shutdown.
“Building that wall and having it funded
remains an important priority to him but we also know that that can
happen later this year and into next year, and in the interim you see
other smart technology and other resources and tools being used toward
border security,” Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News on Tuesday.
Trump
told a group of conservative journalists gathered at the White House on
Monday that he could put off until September asking Congress to include
the money in the federal budget. That could remove, at least for now,
one of the biggest deal-breakers he’s inserted into talks to pass a bill
this week that would finance the government through September, the end
of the fiscal year.
“On funding the border wall, Trump said he could get it this
week or the administration could come back to it in September,” Trey
Yingst, a White House correspondent for One America News, reported in a tweet. A White House official who asked for anonymity confirmed what Trump said during the private meeting.
Democrats,
whose votes will be needed to help pass the spending plan, hope he’ll
blink to avoid an embarrassing milestone for a new president trying to
prove he can govern. A partial shutdown would start on Saturday, Trump’s
100th day in office.
“The
President’s comments this evening are welcome news given the bipartisan
opposition to the wall, and the obstacle it has been to the continuing
bipartisan negotiations in the appropriations committees,” House
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “It’s time for
Congress to act to make it clear that government will remain open for
the American people.”
Earlier Stance
Earlier in the day
Monday, Trump was still touting the long-promised wall that he’s said
Mexico will pay for in the end, according to a White House official.
"The
Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our
country and poisoning our youth (and many others)!” Trump wrote Monday on Twitter.
There is another way for both sides to avert a shutdown -- a
short-term spending plan that would provide another week or so for
negotiations after the deadline early Saturday.
“We feel very
confident the government’s not going to shut down,” White House press
secretary Sean Spicer said Monday, although he said he wouldn’t
guarantee it. The spokesman wouldn’t say whether the president was
willing to shut the government down over funding for the border wall.
Dug In
Right
now, each side is dug in, and as budget talks intensify, Trump also is
pushing House Republicans to restart work on an Obamacare
repeal-and-replace bill after the last one collapsed in March when
conservatives walked away.
Trump is also planning to announce at least the broad parameters
of a tax overhaul on Wednesday that has elements already drawing the
opposition of Democrats, including likely tax cuts for corporations and
high-earning people.
On top of that, Trump insists he won’t go
quietly even if Republicans and Democrats cut a deal. His budget
director tried to sweeten the pot on Friday by offering Democrats help
on their pet cause, Obamacare subsidies.
“The question is, how
much of our stuff do we have to get? How much of their stuff are they
willing to take?” budget director Mick Mulvaney said on Bloomberg TV.
“We’d offer them one dollar” of Obamacare payments, he added, “for one
dollar of wall payments right now.”
OMB Dir. Mulvaney discusses tax plan.
Source: Bloomberg
Democrats
called Mulvaney’s Obamacare offer a non-starter, saying they refuse to
include any funds for a wall in the spending bill.
It’s a rare
moment when the Democrats have leverage in the Republican-controlled
House, because it’s likely that Republican leaders would need at least
some Democratic votes to offset Republican defections on the budget --
as has been the case for a series of budget fights in recent years.
Republicans may not be willing to allow the government to shut down over the wall.
Alternative Ways
“I
wouldn’t risk a trillion-dollar funding bill for a $3 billion wall,”
Representative Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican who sits on the House
appropriations and budget committees, told MSNBC Monday. “There’s
another way, another time to get this.”
Through it all, Trump has sounded upbeat, saying he thinks negotiations are in good shape to avert a shutdown.
“We
don’t know yet” whether Trump would sign a spending bill that doesn’t
include money for the border wall, Mulvaney, a former House member from
South Carolina and a founding member of the conservative Freedom Caucus,
said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s
spokesman, Matt House, complained that the White House in recent days
brought a “heavy hand” into what he said were smooth-going talks between
congressional Republicans and Democrats.
“If the administration
would drop their 11th-hour demand for a wall that Democrats, and a good
number of Republicans, oppose, congressional leaders could quickly reach
a deal,” House said in a statement Friday.
‘Monkey Wrench’
Schumer
told MSNBC on Monday that Republican and Democratic leaders were on
their way to a resolution when Trump intervened “and he throws a monkey
wrench in it.”
One thing is certain: Any spending deal must be a
bipartisan one. Even though Republicans control both houses of Congress
and the White House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House
Speaker Paul Ryan know they’ll both need Democratic votes to pass a
government funding measure.
The Senate needs 60 votes to advance
legislation, meaning the 52 Republicans will need help from at least
eight Democrats. In the House, conservatives led by the Freedom Caucus
and other fiscal hawks have regularly bolted on spending bills, and
Democrats have provided enough votes for passage.
Attorney General
Jeff Sessions said Monday that Democrats should be blamed if the
funding legislation doesn’t pass in time to avoid a shutdown.
Targeting Democrats
“We’ll
have a bill moving forward with some money in there for the wall,” he
said on Fox News. “If the Democrats filibuster that and block it,
they’re the ones shutting the whole government down.”
Mulvaney has acknowledged that Democrats “have a certain amount of leverage.”
But
giving in to Democrats’ demands to get a bipartisan deal would not only
threaten Trump’s wall funding, it also would require dropping
Republican priorities such as language to block funding for such women’s
health clinics as Planned Parenthood, and to defund so-called sanctuary
cities that decline to enforce some immigration laws.
Congressional
negotiators have been quietly working for weeks on possible
compromises, including an increase in defense spending that would be
less than the $30 billion Trump has sought but larger than the $5
billion requested earlier by former President Barack Obama.
Democrats
insisted during the Obama administration that any defense increases be
matched by higher domestic spending, though they may show some
flexibility now.
Trade-Off
One trade-off could pair $9
billion in subsidies for insurance companies under Obamacare -- a
domestic spending increase -- with an equal increase for regular defense
operations. Another $5 billion to $10 billion in war funding could be
added to that, and Democrats could justify going along with the idea
given heightened tensions with Syria and North Korea.
On the
border wall, appropriations lobbyist Jim Dyer of the Podesta Group
suggested the issue could be solved by having wall money depend on the
Homeland Security Department issuing a detailed plan later in the year,
subject to bipartisan approval.
Republican appropriators,
meanwhile, haven’t emphasized the issue of stopping funding for
sanctuary cities. The Justice Department already can restrict some local
law enforcement grants to cities and states that don’t provide
immigration status updates to the federal government.
Views Unknown
There’s
also been little talk lately of the White House’s call for $18 billion
in immediate domestic agency cuts as part of the package. This shows
bipartisan promise in Congress, but also leaves Trump’s views largely
unknown.
Democratic leaders in both chambers have complained of a lack of communication with the president until recent days.
“I
don’t think there is a relationship between Trump and congressional
Democrats yet,” said Stan Collender, a budget analyst and executive vice
president of Qorvis MSLGroup in Washington. “I don’t see them doing
anything to help him at all.”
Still, if McConnell and Ryan decide
they need to pass a short-term funding plan to provide time for more
talks, Democrats will have a strategic decision to make -- oppose it to
keep pressure on Trump, or go along amid concern about being the party
blamed for a shutdown.
Collender said Trump may decide to declare a
“win” by making compromises to avoid a shutdown similar to the 16-day
partial closing in 2013 under Obama. Yet, he said, the president also
might surprise people by pushing hard for his proposals. His supporters
might like to see him fight for the border wall and other priorities,
Collender said.
Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers
University in New Jersey, said, “Government shutdowns seem to have
fallen out of fashion even with conservative Republicans” who forced the
2013 shutdown in an unsuccessful attempt to repeal Obamacare.
“The
only hitch I see is if Trump gets dogmatic over the wall and passes the
word to Ryan that they shouldn’t let the Democrats off the hook with
their alternative to a brick-and-mortar wall,” he said.
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