OPINION | Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those held by Sarah Palin.
On the first day of the government shutdown, Democrats and Republicans traded barbs back and forth as to who was at fault. But it didn’t seem that anyone had a resolution to the impasse caused by the Democrats refusing to vote on the funding bill until they get an agreement on DACA.
Part of the problem is that despite the fact that Democrats are pushing this, there isn’t even a bill on the table on which to vote on for DACA, which deals with illegal aliens who were brought here as children.
How can you agree to something which is so amorphous? That’s certainly part of the hang-up.
And now the Republicans are looking to have a vote to break the Democrats’ filibuster and fund the government.
From Fox News:
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that a vote to break a Democratic filibuster on a short-term spending bill to reopen the government would happen by 1 a.m. Monday.
“I asked for consent to move up a vote on this bipartisan solution and end this craziness. The Democrats objected,” McConnell said late Saturday, Roll Call reported. “That won’t work forever. If they continue to object, we cannot proceed to a cloture vote until 1 a.m. Monday.
“But I assure you,” McConnell added, “we will have the vote at 1 a.m. Monday, unless there is a desire to have it sooner.”
They plan on working toward that on Sunday afternoon, which McConnell urging Schumer to withdraw his filibuster.
The shutdown kicked in late Friday into Saturday after Senate Democrats blocked a 28-day resolution to keep the government open. The bill would have funded the government, and included a six-year extension of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But Democrats rejected it, as it did not include a legislative fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
That Obama-era program, which offered protection for illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, was repealed by President Donald Trump in September, with a March deadline for Congress to come up with a fix. While separate bipartisan immigration talks had been underway, Democrats demanded a DACA fix as part of the continuing resolution (CR) — requiring Republicans to try in vain to cobble together the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
McConnell says it’s a crisis “manufactured’ by the Democrats.
Democrats, on the other hand, tried to blame Republicans to the public, saying the GOP controlled the government.
“Happy anniversary, Mr. President,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said. “You wanted a shutdown. The shutdown is all yours.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer claimed that he offered Trump funding for the border wall, but Trump wanted more things that were “off the table.”
The White House pushed back saying that the Democrats were having a “2-year-old temper tantrum.”
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney also called out Schumer for not being truthful about the meeting that he had with Trump. He said Schumer had only offered only $1.8 billion in funding for the wall, far short of the roughly $20 billion needed for the wall and what Trump wanted. But Mulvaney said Schumer still tried to buffalo Trump and tell him he was giving him everything he wanted.
The White House upped the pressure a bit more with adding a voicemail message to the White House comments line which blames Democrats for the shutdown.
“Thank you for calling the White House, unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are withholding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate. Due to this obstruction, our government is shut down,” the voicemail said.
The Trump re-election campaign also released an ad describing the Democrats as complicit in the crimes of illegal aliens if they worked to keep them in the country.
And the White House said they refused to negotiate DACA until the government was funded.
[Note: This post was written by Nick Arama]