Could this go there?
A SECOND government shutdown for a border wall that ain’t getting any serious money?
With Democrats united against wall money and Republicans seeing the American public against shutdowns for a wall….
The feeling now is that Democrats WILL agree to some border security (fence?) money, as way to allow Trump and Republicans to salvage some face with their supporters…..The deal would again be a temporary one….It appears that Trump will NOT sign off on ANY Immigration reform terms….
Senate Republicans are signaling they will do just about anything to prevent a second shutdown after the White House was widely seen as badly losing the political fight over the closure that ended with President Trump’s retreat on Friday.
Republicans are in no mood to be dragged back into another partial closure in mid-February, the deadline to get a deal on spending for roughly a quarter of the government.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), modifying a well-known quote, told reporters Tuesday that “there certainly would be no education in the third kick of the mule.”
“I don’t like shutdowns. I don’t think they work for anybody, and I hope that they would be avoided,” McConnell said. “I’m for whatever works, which means avoiding a shutdown and avoiding the president feeling that he should declare a national emergency.”
Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, characterized a shutdown as a “pox on all of our houses.”
“I think the leader wants to see a result come from this,” said Thune. “There’s no appetite for government shutdowns and there is not much appetite for an emergency declaration for a lot of reasons.”
Congressional negotiators haven’t even held their first meeting to avert another shutdown, but the prospect of a big deal on border security and immigration is essentially dead.
When President Donald Trump caved in on the 35-day shutdown fight last week, he encouraged Congress to come up with a compromise — perhaps a trade of wall funding for temporary relief for Dreamers as he had previously proposed.
But Democrats are ruling out the idea of negotiating on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, skeptical that Trump would actually provide a permanent fix for the young undocumented immigrants after he previously rejected just such a deal. Meanwhile, top Republicans also doubt an expansive agreement could be put together in the next three weeks.
The fading prospects of the negotiation mean Trump is likely to receive only a fraction of the $5.7 billion he’s been seeking for his southern barrier in any deal, if one can be put together at all by Feb. 15. Then he would have to decide whether to unilaterally move funds around by declaring a legally dubious national emergency or embrace another debilitating shutdown.
“I’ve tried to work with this administration on issues involving immigration with a great level of frustration. And I do not want to take so many innocent people whose fate is hanging in the balance of this political debate and start off with the premise that we have a likelihood of solving their problem,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, a Democratic negotiator on the conference committee, which meets for the first time Wednesday.
Many Republicans generally agree that any homeland security spending deal crafted by the bipartisan, bicameral group of 17 lawmakers should be “narrow” in scope, said Sen. John Cornyn, a former GOP whip.
“It’s not going to be a big immigration bill. Because it’s not within their portfolio,” he added.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is also fine with a modest agreement — as long as the government doesn’t shut down again. He said on Tuesday he for “whatever works.”
It’s hard enough to strike a deal on one politically perilous issue like border security; adding in more could make it downright impossible….