Tag Archives: Congress

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How do you define a ‘good’ government shutdown?

Donald J. Trump is wearing me out.

He keeps saying outrageous things, forcing bloggers and other commentators such as yours truly to figure what the hell the president is trying to convey.

Get a load of this one, the latest bit of crap-ola to fly out of Trump’s mouth: He now says the government can use a “good shutdown” in September when the money to fund it runs out.

Has there ever been another president of the United States who has uttered such abject nonsense? Umm, let me think. No. There hasn’t.

Trump frustration grows

As The Hill reports, it appears the president has grown frustrated with Congress, which has approved a funding measure that keeps the government operating, but includes zero money for that “big, beautiful wall” Trump wants built along our southern border with Mexico.

According to The Hill: “Democrats have argued that they won most of the battles surrounding the bill, and several media accounts have suggested that Trump and the White House were losers in the negotiations.

“A New York Times headline on the deal said: ‘Winners and Losers of the Spending Deal (Spoiler Alert: Trump Lost).'”

With the president, it’s all about winning and losing. He wants money to build that damn wall because it would constitute a “win” for him and his White House team.

As for the government shutdown idea, that’s pure idiocy. Then again, if Trump had any knowledge or experience with government — or perhaps any sense of the good that government can do for those who need assistance — he wouldn’t have made such a ridiculous statement, which he made via Twitter.

House Speaker Paul Ryan defended the president’s rant. “The president’s tweet was that we might need a shutdown at some point to drive home that this place — that Washington needs to be fixed,” Ryan said. “I think that’s a defensible position, one we’ll deal with in September.”

Shutting down the government can “fix” Washington? Oh, here’s an idea: Why doesn’t the president summon congressional leaders of both parties to the White House and start talking to all of them about constructive solutions?

That would fix Washington … wouldn’t it? It also would keep the government running and serving those Americans who need help.

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Border security, yes; the wall, no!

Well now, that wasn’t so hard, was it Congress?

Federal lawmakers have approved a stop-gap budget bill that keeps the government operating through September. They have avoided a federal government shutdown that some in Congress — and the White House — had feared might occur at the end of this week.

Here’s the thing, too: The budget contains zero money for a “big, beautiful” wall along our nation’s southern border, which Donald Trump had insisted be included … that is, until he backed down and withdrew his demand.

The bill allocates $1.5 billion for enhanced border security. Hey, that’s not a bad load of dough to protect our borders against illegal immigrants and assorted criminals and, yes, potential terrorists. More Border Patrol agents and better surveillance equipment can go a long way toward making us more secure along both of our lengthy land borders.

It also sets aside $15 billion in defense spending to fight terrorism, with $2.5 million of it contingent on the president developing a strategy to fight the Islamic State. I like that idea, too.

Let’s get busy with longer term deal

Congress isn’t done. Not by a long shot. How about lawmakers hunkering down immediately to start working on a longer-term arrangement that keeps the government functioning well past the next deadline?

Believe it or not, September will be upon us before any of us knows it. Congress, though, likely will spend the bulk of the summer spread out on recess. Members will go home, or perhaps travel on those infamous “fact-finding” junkets to exotic locations in the South Pacific, South America or the south of France.

But I’m heartened to know that the wall gets no taxpayer money, given that the president’s efforts to get Mexico to pay for it have fallen flat.

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Hey Dems, don’t be obstructionists, too!

I’ve spent a lot of emotional energy with this blog bashing congressional Republicans for what I believe has been their obstructionist habits as they dealt with a Democratic president, Barack H. Obama.

My sense of fairness compels me to instruct congressional Democrats to avoid following their GOP colleagues’ lead as they now must deal with a Republican in the White House, Donald J. Trump.

I understand that the roles aren’t entirely parallel.

For much of Obama’s time as president, Republicans controlled at least one congressional chamber. They took control of the entire Capitol Building after the 2014 elections. I remember, too, when Sen. Mitch McConnell, then the minority leader, declared his No. 1 priority was to make Obama a “one-term president.”

The GOP fought the president along every step. Republicans opposed the president’s economic stimulus package right out of the chute in 2009; they opposed the Affordable Care Act; they — along with a handful of Democrats — resisted calls for new laws on guns even after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 20 first- and second-graders.

The GOP now controls Congress and the White House.

What’s left for Democrats? They’re angry (a) over the way Republicans treated Barack Obama and (b) that they lost the 2016 election that every pundit in the country seemed to think was in the bag for them.

Is obstructionism the way to go? No. For one thing, Democrats are operating from a much weaker position this time than Republicans had when Barack Obama took office.

Still, some congressional Democrats are insisting that they intend to block the president and his fellow Republicans in Congress. They don’t intend to work with their “friends” on the other side. Some Democratic lawmakers have declared their intention is to ensure that Trump gets impeached.

Government isn’t supposed to be an ideological battleground. It’s supposed to serve the people whose votes put politicians in office. There surely ought to be ways for Democrats can look for common ground with Republicans. Need they surrender their principles? Not any more than Republicans should surrender theirs.

I feel as though I should remind Democrats — just as I reminded Republicans during the Obama years — that many of us out here want government to be a functioning body. We want government to enact smart legislation. We insist that members of the House and Senate hue to the principle of good government.

And good government, by definition, means that it works on behalf of those of us who pay for it.

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What has the president learned in 100 days?

Let’s turn away for a moment from what Donald Trump might have accomplished during his first 100 days as president to what he might have learned during that time.

The president’s list of accomplishments is pretty damn skimpy.

His learning curve, though, has been steep. I hope it’s beginning to flatten out.

What’s the most glaring eye-opener for the president? It’s that you cannot run the federal government the way you run a business.

At virtually every turn along the way since taking office, the president has been forced to swallow that bitter pill. A man who became used to getting his way because he demands it has learned that the federal government is structured — on purpose — to function on an entirely different set of dynamics.

The nation’s founders crafted a brilliant governing document. When you think about it, while the U.S. Constitution grants the president significant executive authority, it does not imbue the office with ultimate governing authority. The founders divvied up power among three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial.

It’s that darn legislative branch — the U.S. Congress — that has a say in what becomes law. Donald Trump’s business experience doesn’t mean squat to many of the 535 men and women who comprise both chambers of Congress. They, too, have their constituencies to which they must answer. Yes, the president represents the nation, but Congress — as a body — also represents the very same nation.

Can you govern the nation like a business? No. Never. Not a zillion years.

Trump needs to understand that governance is a team sport. He cannot threaten members of Congress if they resist his legislative proposals. He cannot exclude members of the “other” party from key negotiations. He must abandon the “I, alone” mantra — which he bellowed at the Republican National Convention this past summer — that threatens to haunt him for as long as he is president.

And then there’s the judicial branch. The federal judiciary comprises individuals who hold lifetime appointed jobs. Their mission is to ensure that laws do not violate the Constitution. The founders granted them independence from the executive and legislative government branches.

Those judges have the constitutional authority to knock down executive orders, or to put the brakes on laws enacted by Congress. They aren’t “so-called judges” whose status as “unelected” jurists doesn’t diminish their authority.

I hope the president has learned at least some elements of all this during his first 100 days. If he doesn’t, then we’re all going to be in for an extremely rough ride.

However, we’re all just spectators. The president will need to hold on with both hands if he has any chance of getting anything done during his time in office.

We are witnessing the consequence of electing someone with zero public service experience. Mr. President, the federal government bears no resemblance — none! — to the businesses you built.

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How did The Wall become our responsibility?

Hey, didn’t Donald John Trump vow, declare it a lead-pipe cinch that Mexico would pay for a “big, beautiful wall” along the border between that country and the United States of America?

Didn’t he say he would force Mexico to foot the bill because, after all, those criminals and terrorists were “flooding” the country through our southern neighbor?

He got into an immediate war of words with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto after taking office this past January. Why? Pena Nieto said “no way” would his country spend a nickel to pay for the wall.

Here we are, nearly 100 days into the Trump administration’s existence. The wall is now central to a domestic political dispute — in the United States. The federal government might shut down if Congress cannot come up with a plan to stick American taxpayers with the bill to build a wall that (a) won’t work and (b) will blow up the annual budget deficit.

What’s the cost of this boondoggle? $20 billion to $25 billion? For starters?

Congress and the president are squabbling over whether to approve one of those “continuing resolutions” that would fund the government for the short term. Meanwhile, that damn wall is still being negotiated between Republican congressional leaders and the Republican who now sits (once in a while) in the Oval Office.

If there is a more impractical, illogical and ill-conceived idea than building such a barrier between two ostensibly “friendly” nations, then someone will have tell me.

A huge portion of the U.S.-Mexico border happens to be along a mighty river — the Rio Grande — that separates Texas from Mexico. How in the name of civil engineering does the president build the wall along that border? How does the president propose to seize all that private land without adding to the already-enormous cost? The U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment requires “just compensation” for any “private land taken for public use.”

Well, why quibble over the small stuff?

The very notion of this wall becoming central to this political dispute simply illustrates yet another blind and thoughtless campaign promise the president cannot keep.

And if he made that promise knowing that he couldn’t fulfill it, isn’t that just another flat-out, bald-faced lie?

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So long, Chairman Chaffetz

Jason Chaffetz stunned his U.S. House of Representatives colleagues today by announcing his intention to step away from Congress next year.

The Utah Republican won’t seek re-election.

Scuttlebutt is going in a couple of directions: Chaffetz might run for Utah governor in 2020 or he might seek a U.S. Senate seat after that.

The young lawmaker has made a bit of name for himself during his time in Congress. He chairs the House Oversight Committee and spent a lot of time — and taxpayer money — looking for dirt to throw onto Hillary Rodham Clinton while she was running for president this past year. He came up empty, as did his predecessor as chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

My own thoughts of Chairman Chaffetz, though, go back to when he was first elected to Congress. He became one of those grandstanders who slept each night on a couch in his office. He didn’t bother with renting an apartment, or buying a home in Washington, D.C.

I recall him making some noise about wanting to connect with his constituents back home. He flew home regularly to be with his wife and children. I admire his dedication to his family.

However, I always have wondered about politicians who call attention to themselves ostensibly to make some sort of statement about staying in touch with the home folks. I am left to ask: How many folks back home sleep on office furniture?

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Spinning losses into moral victories

Politics has this way of producing victories where none is apparent.

Democrats around the country, for instance, are seeking to turn electoral defeats into a form of winning. It’s a fascinating thing to watch — and it has me shaking my head.

A Kansas congressional district special election produced a Republican victory recently. The Fourth Congressional District seat once was held by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, whom Donald Trump appointed to become the nation’s top spook. Trump won that district over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and it has been in GOP hands seemingly since The Flood.

The Republican who won the seat in the special election did so narrowly. Thus, Democrats are claiming some sort of victory.

Today, voters in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District are going to the polls. They’re going to choose a successor to Tom Price, who represented the GOP-friendly district before becoming secretary of health and human services; the Sixth District once was represented by none other than the inimitable Newt Gingrich.

A large field is running. It includes five Democrats and 11 Republicans. The top vote-getter needs to win with 50 percent plus one vote to win the election outright. The leader is a Democrat, a young man named Jon Ossoff. Polling indicates he is likely to fall short — barely — of the majority he needs to win. If he doesn’t make it, he needs to face the No. 2 finisher, likely one of the Republicans. The GOP hopes the party will rally behind their guy and elect him over Ossoff in the runoff election.

Still, Democrats — even if they lose this election — are likely to crow about how they damn near flipped that district.

Please.

As a progressive-leaning voter myself, I am pulling for an upset in Georgia. I would be glad to see Ossoff score an outright victory by day’s end. A win by the young Democrat clearly would send a message to the president and his Republican friends that they’re likely to have a serious fight on their hands in next year’s mid-term congressional elections.

However, elections determine winners and losers. Candidates need to get more votes than their opponent to actually win. Falling short of the total they need today in Georgia will not stop Democrats from spinning a loss into some sort of moral victory.

As the old saying goes, “Close counts only in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

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Yes, congressman, the public pays your salary

Markwayne Mullin has a curious way of honoring this tax-filing season.

All the Republican congressman from eastern Oklahoma did was tell a fired-up town hall audience the other day that they don’t pay his congressional salary. No sir. He has essentially “prepaid” his own $174,000 annual salary by forking over all that tax revenue from his multiple businesses, or so he said.

So help me, if there was a prize for creative (non)thinking, I am quite certain Rep. Mullin would be a finalist for the Mother of All Booby Prizes.

It ain’t ‘bullcrap’

Here is part of how the Washington Times reported Mullin’s, um, strange rationale: “You said you pay for me to do this. Bullcrap. I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got there and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to go,” Mr. Mullin said in a video of the exchange. “I do it as an honor and a service.”

An honor and a service? Is that what you call it, young man?

Even though I am not one of your constituents, I applaud this fellow for calling his congressional service an “honor.” However, he isn’t doing it on his own dime. He’s doing it with money paid by taxpayers all across the nation. That includes those of us who live way over yonder in the Texas Panhandle, which is a good distance from the district Mullin serves.

To be candid, such reasoning about his own tax burden paying for his congressional service insults the intelligence of those who heard him say it at the town hall gathering. It also insults the rest of us who know better than to believe the nonsense this guy sputtered.

The only “bullcrap” mentioned by this young member of Congress was the notion that taxpayers aren’t footing the bill for his service on Capitol Hill.

This is just me thinking out loud at the moment, but I venture to guess that Rep. Mullin has just “bullcrapped” his way out of office after the next congressional election.

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Time for a town hall meeting, Rep. Thornberry? Hmmm?

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Welcome home, Mac Thornberry.

I know you’re a big shot in the U.S. House of Representatives, chairing the House Armed Services Committee and all of that.

You and I have some shared history here in the Texas Panhandle. You took office the same week I reported for duty at the Amarillo Globe-News in January 1995. In a way, we kind of “grew up together.”

But you’ve disappointed me at times. We differ on public policy matters. That’s OK with me. We have maintained a friendly relationship, which I sincerely appreciate.

What I cannot yet fathom is why you are forgoing town hall meetings with your constituents during this Easter/Passover break Congress is taking. Surely you know about the unease among many Americans about what Congress might do with the Affordable Care Act, the law you GOP lawmakers and other critics blithely call “Obamacare.”

Y’all tried to scrap it and replace it with something else. It didn’t work. The effort failed.

But you aren’t planning any town hall meetings. You met with business leaders in Amarillo and, I presume, in Wichita Falls. I understand you talked about the government’s rules and regulations that affect business operations; I also am quite certain you heard a lot of agreement from those constituents over your own belief that the feds are too hard on private enterprise.

Others out there aren’t entirely in sync with what you want to do. They dislike efforts to repeal and replace the ACA. Indeed, many of your colleagues — including your fellow Republicans — have gotten a gutful of gripes from constituents. I applaud them for taking the heat.

I do not applaud members of Congress who decline to face their constituents and to answer their questions and deal with their anxiety.

You need not to be reminded, Mac, that you work for us. We are your bosses. Not the speaker. Not the House majority leader. Not the president. It’s us, sir.

Talk to us. Listen to us.

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Beware of declaring the end of Trump Era

It might be easy for some observers to declare the virtual end of the Trump Era in the wake of the spectacular flameout of the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

I wish to offer a word of caution.

* The principal character in this drama, Donald John Trump, is a guy who wasn’t supposed to win the Republican presidential nomination this past summer. But he did.

* Then he was supposed to be trampled by the Democratic Party juggernaut led by that party’s presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton. He defeated Hillary in the general election.

* Trump was thought to be a goner after an endless litany of verbal gaffes, insults, revelations of hideous behavior. He not only survived all those incidents, the legions of Trumpkins rallied behind him.

Trump shouldn’t be president. However, he is president. He doesn’t know the political system works. He has surrounded himself with sycophants who have little knowledge of the system as well.

He got his head handed to him by conservative congressional Republicans.

Is this the end of Trump’s tenure as president?

Sure, except that he survived some hideous mistakes on his way to the presidency.

There might be circumstances that develop along the way that derail this guy. One political miscalculation — admittedly it’s a big one, indeed — likely isn’t enough to do him in.