It's official, Congress is giving us a prolonged shutdown fight for Christmas. The original funding deadline for about a third of government was this Friday at midnight. It's been pushed back two weeks until December 21, the Friday before Christmas. That's because Republicans have to have miserable deadlines like that staring them in the face to get any actual work done.
At some point this week, both chambers will pass a two-week funding bill by voice votes and unanimous consent. Presumably, no departing angry House Republican or Ted Cruz or Rand Paul will decide to make an obnoxious stand and prevent that from happening and the grandstanding will also be postponed by two weeks. Much of government has actually been funded thus far by regular appropriations, a fact that demonstrates just how wary Republican lawmakers are of Individual 1 and his penchant for blowing things up. Because they haven't bothered with regular appropriations for years. That all happened quietly, almost behind Trump's back. But it all happened under the cloud of what everyone knew would be the big fight: the border wall.
And in fact, border security under the Department of Homeland Security is one of the things unfunded, along with Commerce, State, Justice and Interior, and a few others. So, ironically, those who will get hurt the most should Trump's insistence on having this border wall shutdown would be the people enforcing border security. Stan Collender, a longtime former congressional budget staffer, makes that point in an interview with HuffPost's S.V. Date. "This is standard Trump. His tariffs are hurting his voters far more than those who voted against him. And sending troops to the border over Thanksgiving hurt the military he says he supports," Collender said. "Trump's shutdown plans will be more of the same, with the border patrol and ICE being harmed the most because they'll very likely to be forced to work without pay, and without any guarantee they will be paid."
The ongoing stalemate of Trump insisting he has to have $5 billion and a wall puts additional pressure on incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrats whose conferences are necessary to pass any spending agreement. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell puts it all on them. "[Trump] and Schumer and [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi need to sit down and discuss how to resolve the differences," McConnell said at the annual meeting of The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Monday. The two were to meet with Trump Tuesday, but that's been postponed probably until sometime next week, because of the death of former President George H.W. Bush and the events at the Capitol surrounding that.
"Chuck and Nancy" have been able to roll Trump before, but that was before his rage became fully entrenched. Coming out of what was a disastrous midterm for him, with Robert Mueller breathing down his neck. He's also been itching to shut down government for months and months, having been talked out of doing it in September despite the fact that he thought it would be good for Republicans in the midterms. Schumer and Pelosi need to go in strong, and not give into him on the wall. Schumer himself has pointed out that there's $1.3 billion in unspent border security money available. There's no reason at all to give him any more.