Show Down At High Noon as today Chuck Schumer and crew will have a chance to save face.
There will be a vote to restart the government temporarily through February 8th. This would allow both sides to hammer out the last of the details required to sign off on a long-term spending bill.
Give And Take
The debate raged all through the weekend with little to show for it. Murmurings in Washington are that tomorrows vote is nothing more than another chance for each side to cast blame on the other for failing to engage the other.
Democrats have spent most of the weekend on TV trying to spin the Schumer Shutdown into a comment on the Trump administration. Luckily for us, no one is buying it. Despite a near constant negative narrative polls are showing that the blame is falling directly in the laps of those who deserve it most.
Nuclear Option
President Trump on twitter has suggested what he called a “nuclear option”; a long-term budget bill. The difference being that a long-term bill only requires a simple majority vote instead of the 60 a continuing resolution needs.
Unfortunately, even after given such great advice, there are some in his own party that have balked at the idea, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who says he “opposes changing the rules on legislation”. Timid centrist Lindsey Graham has come out in support of a continuing resolution, worried about how much more difficult negotiations will become after the rhetoric steps up.
As the first weekday of the Schumer Shutdown begins and the full impact of this begins to reverberate across the country, it will become deafeningly clear who will shoulder the blame for this into the mid-term elections.
While President Trump has remained (mostly) quite on the issue, preferring instead to let congress sort out their own issues, it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising for him to step up his game tomorrow and let the jabs fly.
