Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Amid shutdown, lawmakers leave, nation’s capital empties
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers left Washington for the Christmas holiday Monday, the third day of the partial U.S. government shutdown, with no sign of urgency to resolve the fight over President Donald Trump’s demand for border wall money.
The House and Senate briefly gaveled into session on Christmas Eve before closing again with no further action.
The president remained in Washington and scheduled a border security meeting Monday afternoon at the White House with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and other department officials, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. — the only senator at the Capitol on Monday — suggested a compromise to reopen the government but without wall funding.
“The border needs more money, just to take care of people that seek asylum and what’s going on down there,” Roberts said. “So, if we can do that, without the wall, I think that’s a solution. But a lot of people are dug in on this issue.”
Asked why House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., left Washington, spokesman Mike Ricci said by email that the negotiations are between the White House and Senate Democrats, “and when the Senate acts, the House will be prepared to follow.”
The next possibility for votes in the House and Senate is on Thursday, but Democrats have indicated the two sides are far from a deal. If there’s no agreement, many lawmakers won’t return until the new session of Congress starts on Jan. 3, when Democrats take control of the House.
Though the White House and Democrats have traded offers over the dollars, they remain far apart on the actual wall.
The White House insists Trump will reject any deal that does not include money for a wall or fence; Democrats were holding firm in their opposition to a wall or other physical barrier.
In a joint statement Monday, the Democratic leaders, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, said that as long as Trump keeps listening to the Freedom Caucus and others on the right flank, there is no easy resolution to the impasse.
“It’s Christmas Eve and President Trump is plunging the country into chaos,” the leaders said.
They pointed to problems beyond the shutdown, including the plunging stock market and the president’s firing of his defense secretary. “The president wanted the shutdown, but he seems not to know how to get himself out of it.”
Trump put off plans to head to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for Christmas. His wife, first lady Melania Trump, was returning from Florida to spend the holiday with him at the White House.
“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” Trump tweeted Monday. “At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!”
In their statement, Pelosi and Schumer said “different people from the same White House are saying different things about what the president would accept or not accept to end his Trump Shutdown, making it impossible to know where they stand at any given moment.”
But Trump blamed Democrats for the stalemate, tweeting Monday that “Virtually every Democrat we are dealing with today strongly supported a Border Wall or Fence. It was only when I made it an important part of my campaign, because people and drugs were pouring into our Country unchecked, that they turned against it. Desperately needed!”
Because Christmas Eve and Christmas are federal holidays, Wednesday is the first day the public could begin to feel the effects of lost government services, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said.
The shutdown actually costs the government money. Museums and parks can’t collect entry fees or sell souvenirs, the Internal Revenue Service would collect less taxes, and it costs money for federal workers to mothball and restart operations.
Although paychecks would stop going out to hundreds of thousands of furloughed workers if the shutdown lingers, those workers are likely to get back pay.
“The amount of money we are going to spend on furloughed workers who aren’t going to do anything but will get paid is pure waste,” said Gordon Gray, director of fiscal policy at American Action Forum, which describes itself as a center-right policy institute.
A prolonged shutdown could affect the broader economy, experts say.
“A week or longer will mean that businesses that depend on these federal employees will start to lose sales,” said Stan Collender, a longtime congressional budget aide who’s now editor-in-chief of thebudgetguy blog in Washington. “Everything from groceries to cars will be affected.”
S&P Global Ratings said the 2013 government shutdown shaved at least 0.6 percent from fourth-quarter 2013 gross domestic product growth, taking some $24 billion out of the economy.