Former Democratic Adviser Has a Proposal to End the Shutdown That Includes Wall Funding, but There’s a Catch
It’s the longest government shutdown in American history. When will it end? Nobody knows. House Democrats and President Trump are not budging from their positions that set off this chain of events. Trump wants $5 billion for a border wall. Democrats don’t want to give him one cent. One side wants to secure our borders, curb illegal immigration, human trafficking, and the transportation of narcotics. The other side doesn’t. For the Left, it’s all about sticking it to Trump. And so, the shutdown drags on. So, what could break the impasse? How about giving Trump everything he wants in terms of border wall funding in exchange for…the Robert Mueller protection bill Democrats, and some Republicans, have been clamoring about? Now, Morley Winograd, a senior policy adviser to former Vice President Al Gore, floated the idea, which for argument’s sake—isn’t necessarily that off base in terms of having a discussion. At the same time, Winograd thinks the shutdown is a way to distract us from the pending Mueller report (via Brookings):
To end the government shutdown, the Democrats should give Trump what he wants—$5 billion for the wall—and insist in return on what the country needs: complete protection of the Mueller investigation and the full public disclosure of its report.
President Trump’s shutdown is nothing more than a shiny bauble to distract the American public from the real threat to the president’s future—Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation and his forthcoming report. The president has insisted that he will not agree to reopen parts of the federal government, even those agencies whose functions have nothing to do with border security unless Congress appropriates $5.7 billion to start fulfilling his most well-known campaign promise to create a wall on the Mexican border. Even as this idea has morphed from Mexico paying for the wall to U.S. taxpayers picking up the tab, and from a concrete barrier to a set of steel slats, Trump has continued to insist his presidency depends on its construction.
There is a simple way to get past Trump’s latest PR stunt and end the government shutdown at the same time.
The House Democrats should pass all the remaining appropriations bills that have passed both the House and the Senate at least once already—but with just a few amendments. The first change would be to add up to $5.7 billion for construction of an effective barrier on the southern border as Trump has insisted upon. The second set of changes would be to insert and amend the current bipartisan Senate bill designed to protect Robert Mueller’s investigation and his ultimate report.
(Read more from “Former Democratic Adviser Has a Proposal to End the Shutdown That Includes Wall Funding, but There’s a Catch” HERE)
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