24 August 2017

Building a wall around Congress

The President has frightened Republican congressional leaders and Wall Street investors by threatening to "shut down" the government by vetoing any bill that raises the debt ceiling without also funding the border wall that was supposed to be funded by Mexico. The credibility of the threat depends on Congress itself. The question the GOP leaders face is twofold. First, can they pass a bill to fund the wall? Second, can they override a presidential veto of a bill without wall funding? The answer to the first question is up to Republicans themselves, since they have a majority of both houses of Congress. Some Republicans, possibly a critical mass, dislike the wall idea for pragmatic or libertarian reasons. There's probably no chance of getting Democrats to make up for any Republican defectors on a wall vote. Meanwhile, Democrats could help override any veto of a wall-less bill -- but at what price? These questions trouble Speaker Ryan and Senator McConnell because they assume from past experience that they, rather than the President or the Democrats, will be blamed by the public should the government shut down. I'm not so sure that that's so. Isn't it more likely that the President would take most of the heat, at least from the media? After all, this would be madman Trump shutting down the government because Congress wouldn't fund his nativist, racist, etc. goddam wall. Yet I suppose the fates of congressional Republicans are tied to the President whether they like it (or him) or not. They'd be the first to face a public backlash, whether he shuts down the government or gets his wall -- if there is a backlash, that is. Republican congressmen can only distance themselves so far from a Republican President, no matter how much they might insist that their aren't responsible for or to him. The veto is any President's check on the legislature's power of the purse, but our age of seemingly ceiling-less national debt may have tipped the balance in the executive's favor. It may be true that Congress owes the President nothing personally -- the latter is not the leader of the majority party and must negotiate (or threaten in this case) rather than dictate to them -- but as far as the executive and legislative branches are concerned, the Constitution may require Congress to pay up this time, so to speak, if the majority isn't willing to seek a better deal elsewhere.

1 comment:

hobbyfan said...

Of course President Nutcase will take the heat for shutting down the government. This is just another child-like tantrum from the most immature president in history.

How soon before he's fitted for a straitjacket and sent off to Bellevue?