In search of budget ‘truth’

That scrunching you hear from Washington, D.C., this week is the sound of petulant little heels being dug further and further into the ground.

White House officials and congressional leaders of both parties insist they don’t want a government shutdown — a distinct possibility if there is no agreement on a federal budget by this Saturday, which just so happens to be the 100th day of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Yes, really bad optics there — although most folks know that the optics of a shutdown are far worse than the reality.

The president has made clear he wants two things in this continuing budget resolution — a major hike in defense spending and an increase in funding for “border security,” including something toward his “big, beautiful” border wall with Mexico.

Now shutdowns never work out very well politically for the party in power — a fact minority Democrats are fairly licking their lips over.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), always one with a flair for the dramatic, agreed that while Trump had promised during his campaign to build the wall, “He did not promise that he would take food out of the mouths of babies” or cut programs for seniors, education and the environment to pay for it.

Let no bit of budget hyperbole go unspoken!

Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated in a Sunday TV interview that the administration is looking at least for a “down payment” or planning money for the wall, presumably something that would allow Trump to call this a budget victory.

And Trump, who simply can’t get out of his own way, insisted in a weekend tweet, “Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall.” And all evidence to the contrary be damned.

Welcome to Washington, where truth is a sometime thing.