A way out of the shutdown
Americans hoping that their leaders would find a way out of what is now the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history should chew a bit on the word salad President Donald Trump tossed out on Thursday:
“When during the campaign, I would say ‘Mexico is going to pay for it,’ obviously, I never said this, and I never meant they’re gonna write out a check, I said they’re going to pay for it. They are.”
Of course Mr. Trump did say Mexico would pay for the wall, and that it would do so in the form of “a one time payment,” as he put it in writing in a 2016 memo. And, yes, he has also thrown a bunch of other more abstract payment possibilities at the wall, so to speak, perhaps in the hope that one might stick and give him a face-saving way out of an absurd promise that was the centerpiece of his campaign.
The larger point is this: A president who can’t own up to the fact that he said what everyone heard him say, who changes his mind from day to day and who storms out of “negotiations” in which he doesn’t negotiate is not trying to govern in good faith. He concocted a national crisis and is treating it like a plot on reality TV: The audience is watching, and that’s what really matters.
This isn’t TV though. It’s a real-life drama that’s hurting more than 800,000 federal workers who as of last week are no longer receiving the paychecks they need to cover their mortgages or rent, their grocery and day care bills, and all the other costs many Americans juggle paycheck to paycheck just to get by. It’s affected countless other people who work under contract with the federal government, and all the people and businesses that all those workers and contractors do business with. The administration’s answer? Have a garage sale or take up dog walking, actual suggestions offered to Coast Guard employees.
Congress, of course, could end this, if only Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell would remember that he is a leader of a co-equal branch of government, not a minion of the president, and allow the Senate to vote on budget bills it had already approved last year — and override a veto if necessary.
Flailing for a face-saving way out of this, Mr. Trump threatens to declare a national emergency and divert disaster aid from Puerto Rico, Florida and Texas — all still recovering from devastating hurricanes — and from California — still reeling from the deadliest, most destructive wildfire season on record — to fund his fantastical, unnecessary, ineffective wall. He threatens, that is, to take money from real emergencies and spend it on a fake one. And to have Americans, not Mexico, pay for the wall.
Whether he’ll follow through on that threat, whether this is a negotiating ploy or just his reality TV way of keeping the audience wondering, who knows? The one bright spot is that it might offer a way out of the shutdown — the government could fully reopen on Congress’ terms, and Mr. Trump and Democrats could go to court over whether he overstepped his powers. Win or lose, he can tell his fans he tried. And government goes back to normal, or what Mr. Trump would have us believe is normal these days.