By Glynn Wilson –
The United States Senate took up two bills on Thursday to try to bring an end to the federal government shutdown orchestrated by President Donald J. Trump nearly six weeks ago on Dec. 22.
On day 34 of the shutdown, the Democrats needed 12 Republicans to join them to get the 60 votes needed to override a presidential veto. Only six Republicans voted for a plan to reopen the government for two weeks while negotiations could continue on border security.
Republicans who broke ranks with their party caucus and the president and voted with the Democrats were Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Main, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Johnny Isakson from Georgia, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney from Utah.
While there was much chatter after the failed votes of continuing negotiations, President Trump demanded a “down payment” for a border wall while Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nanci Pelosi stood their ground against a physical structure, saying they would consider more realistic funding for border security if the president would agree to re-open the government.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said a short-term measure to reopen the government might work “if there is a large down payment on the wall.”
“We have no choice but to have a wall or a barrier, and if we don’t have that, it’s just not going to work,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Yet he said if Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer come to a “reasonable” agreement to end the partial government shutdown, “I would support it, yes.”
Democrats and Republicans spoke on the Senate floor after the failed votes and urged quick passage of a two or three-week stopgap funding bill to create time for talks on border security.
“Is this the beginning of the end, or is it just the end of the beginning? We shall find out,” said Senator Richard Shelby, the Republican from Alabama who now leads the Appropriations Committee that was supposed to be making progress last year on normalizing budget negotiations to return to a regular order budget process.
Progress led to successful bipartisan budget bills passing in the lame duck Congress in December, but Trump changed his mind and refused to sign the measures, purposely shutting the government down right before Christmas and causing hardships across the land.
The shutdown has left 800,000 federal workers without pay and struggling to make ends meet, as the effects on government services, national security and the economy reverberate nationwide. When paychecks are not delivered again on Friday, the TSA workers could stage a sick day walkout, potentially shutting down airports. The stock market is bound to react negatively on Friday and Monday to the Senate failure to reach a compromise, with reverberations throughout the economy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacted coolly to prospects of a compromise that included wall funding, saying that would not be a reasonable arrangement, according to comments reported on MSNBC.
Pelosi told reporters earlier she was willing to meet with Trump to discuss the shutdown. Her comments came one day after she essentially withdrew an invitation for Trump to give his State of the Union in the House chamber next Tuesday, saying that would not happen until the shutdown ended. Trump, who had planned to come despite the shutdown and considered giving the speech at another venue, conceded late on Wednesday and said he would deliver the speech in the House in the “near future.”
Let Them Eat Cake?
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday urged furloughed federal workers to seek loans to pay their bills while adding in a CNBC interview that he could not understand why they were having trouble getting by.
Pelosi denounced the comments.
“Is this the ‘Let them eat cake’ kind of attitude or ‘Call your father for money?’ or ‘This is character building for you?’” Pelosi asked at a news conference.
She said she did not understand why Ross would make the comment “as hundreds of thousands of men and women are about to miss a second paycheck tomorrow.”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he had spoken to Trump about a short-term funding bill.
“All of us believe if we have three weeks with the government open that we could find a way forward to produce a bill that he would sign, that would be good for everybody in the country,” Graham said on the Senate floor. “To my Democratic friends, money for a barrier is required to get this deal done.”
Freshman Senator Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee was one of six Republicans who joined Democrats in trying to get the government open.
“Democrats have said they’re not willing to negotiate unless the government’s open. Well they tried their effort,” Romney said. “I voted for it. It didn’t happen. Now they’ve got to negotiate.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found more than half of Americans blame Trump for the shutdown even as he has sought to shift blame to Democrats, after saying last month he would be “proud” to close the government in exchange for an unrealistic wall on the U.S. southern border.
Alabama Senator Doug Jones Disappointed
U.S. Senator Doug Jones, the Alabama Democrat, expressed disappointment in the failed efforts to reopen the government
“I am disappointed that we have again failed our constituents by not finding a consensus path forward to reopen the government. I am especially disappointed because I was one of the few Democratic voices that did not reject the President’s Saturday proposal out of hand,” Senator Jones said in a statement. “Instead, I said that I viewed it as a positive step toward good faith efforts to find common ground. I did so because I truly believe we need to work together to reopen the government.”
But as has all too often been the case with this administration, he said, when it comes time for legislation rather than media announcements, “the president adds provisions that are unacceptable.”
“When I saw what the president had added to the plan he announced just five days ago, particularly as it pertains to the limitations and additional hardships placed on families and children who are legitimately seeking refuge in this country from violence in their own countries, and doing so through the legal asylum process, I could not vote for it despite my consistent support for stronger border security,” Jones said. “However, along with six of my Republican colleagues, I fulfilled my commitment to the thousands of federal employees and contractors to immediately re-open the government, as well as the farmers of south Alabama who were hit so hard by Hurricane Michael, by supporting an amendment that would have funded the government through February 8.”
That measure would have provided members of Congress additional time to work toward a compromise on border security while allowing furloughed employees and contractors the opportunity to go back to work and receive the back pay they deserve. This amendment would have also provided approximately $12 billion in immediate disaster relief funding.
“Unfortunately, it was clear from the start that neither plan had a path to passing the Senate, much less becoming law, so I reiterate my call to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stop negotiating only within their own caucuses,” Jones said. “How can we ever expect the people of this country to come together if our leaders won’t sit down and work to find common ground?”
He said he was still committed to doing that.
“We need to reach across the aisle and end the growing crisis within our borders created by this government shutdown,” Jones said. “Our dedicated federal employees and contractors need to be able to get back to work and receive their paychecks so that the security of our country is not placed in further jeopardy.”
Senator Jones is also introducing the Back Pay Fairness Act, which would grant furloughed employees interest on the pay that is being withheld.
He cosponsored the Pay Our Coast Guard Act (S. 21), a bill to ensure that the Coast Guard would continue to be funded in an event that a budget bill is not passed.
He cosponsored the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 (S. 24), which says that federal government employees are to receive compensation for the lapse of pay during the shutdown.
He urged the Office of Management Budget (OMB) to direct federal agencies to work with contractors to provide back pay to compensate these workers who have been furloughed.
He is asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to take steps to resume servicing home loan products. During the government shutdown, the USDA has stopped serving new home loans for low-income rural homebuyers.
He has written to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expressing concern about the effects of the shutdown on the agency’s oversight on foreign and domestic food facilities and medical review process. His letter asked how the agency plans to run in an event of a long-term government shutdown.
And he wrote to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) expressing concern about the effects the shutdown will have on affordable housing. In a government shutdown, HUD will not renew the Project Based Rental Assistance contracts that fund affordable housing for low-income households, of which a significant portion are elderly or disabled. His letter also shared concerns for delayed Federal Housing Authority’s (FHA) loan processing, which will also delay Americans’ ability to close on a home.
