While the president is spiraling out of control and Republicans are hellbent on passing a tax bill that they know will harm millions of low-income people, there's some serious shit coming down the line which none of them are capable of staving off.
Failure to act in the coming days could bring a partial shutdown of government operations, jeopardize health-care services for 9 million children and 370,000 pregnant women nationwide, and further complicate the fate of hundreds of thousands of children of illegal immigrants, known as dreamers, who could start facing deportation in early March.
“We have a lot differences,” Trump said in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, flanked by two empty chairs meant for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), calling Democrats weak on crime, immigration and the military. Asked about the possibility of a government shutdown this month, the president said: “If that happens, I would absolutely blame the Democrats.” […]
Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), a close ally of Trump, called it “irresponsible” of the Democrats to pull out of the White House meeting Tuesday. He also decried the larger pattern of fiscal brinkmanship in which both parties have engaged.
“This is ridiculous that here we are in December trying to fund the government for this year,” he said. He added: “Why in the hell didn’t we have this budget done and the funding done before the end of the fiscal year, back in September?”
Why, Sen. Perdue? Because the majority party, Trump's party, spent pretty much the whole of the legislative calendar on repealing Obamacare. Because you collectively chose to spend your time doing everything in your power to destroy any and everything that had President Barack Obama's fingerprints on it. That is why we're here. And guess what—you're still doing that! Look what you're doing now, this week. Tax cuts for the filthy rich, blowing up the deficit you supposedly care about.
Democrats Schumer and Pelosi are once again being the grown-ups, once again being forced into the position of having to save Paul Ryan's and Mitch McConnell's asses and keep this republic limping along for one more year. Their ability to do that, however, is strained to its limits by the Dumpster fire in the White House.
They are doing the only responsible thing they can right now, while they have the ability to do so—resist. Refuse to negotiate with the terrorists, and hope that there are enough Republicans who meant it when they took their oath of office to keep everything from totally going off the rails.
