No time to waste

Much depends on the precarious negotiations to avert another federal funding lapse. The livelihood of hundreds of thousands of federal workers still recovering from President Trump’s senseless shutdown is on the line. So is the credibility of the Democratic opposition.

Trump’s attempt to force Congress into spending billions on his border wall, which precipitated the longest federal shutdown on record, was a gross overreach that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats rightly resisted. Now Democrats must also resist the temptation to overplay their hand.

A group of 17 lawmakers from both parties and chambers had been making progress on a compromise to pay for border security measures and extend funding for about a quarter of the government before it expires Friday. It helped that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell abandoned his insistence on deferring to Trump’s alternately intransigent or inscrutable position. But a Democratic push to impose new limits on detentions of unauthorized immigrants living in the country appears to have brought talks to a standstill over the weekend, though negotiators were making a lastditch effort to revive them Monday.

Many Americans are rightly revolted by the administration dragnet that has seen otherwise lawabiding, longtime residents of the country detained and deported for immigration violations. The trouble is that by trying to force contentious policy changes into last-minute funding legislation, Democrats risk repeating Trump’s error and causing another shutdown that won’t be so easily blamed on him.

The president’s typically irresponsible position has been that the congressional negotiations are a “waste of time.” Lawmakers must reach a deal lest they prove him right.