A Quick Note On The Shutdown, And Where We Go From Here

I’ve got some quick advice for Republicans on Capitol Hill now that the Senate Democrats have absolutely lost their minds and filibustered a short-term continuing resolution that would fund the federal government for a few weeks while the appropriations bills move toward passage this fall.

The Dems thought it would be a good opportunity to jack up the GOP and the American taxpayer for $1.5 trillion in swag for their special interest groups and most obnoxiously to force us to continue paying for health care for illegal aliens – which is done in two ways: first, by funding emergency-room health care reimbursements for hospitals treating illegals, and second, by funding healthcare through eligibility for fake asylum-seekers that Joe Biden let into the country.

They’re denying this is what they’re doing, but nobody is really buying the denials. This is why President Trump’s meme-trolling of Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrats’ ridiculous minority leader in the House, with a clip-art moustache and sombrero appended to video clips of him caterwauling about the shutdown was so effective; it cut through Jeffries’ rhetoric to slam home the fact he’s trying to force Republicans to cave and fund free healthcare for illegals.

They’re screeching that it’s a racist meme. Nobody is buying that. And nobody is buying the Democrats’ arguments that this is somehow a Republican shutdown. It clearly isn’t.

So this is a great leverage moment for the Republicans and for the Trump administration. They’ve now got the ability to do a lot of great things – cutting the federal payroll, eliminating lots of programs we don’t need or which do more harm than good, and so on.

But to fully create advantages out of the shutdown, the advice I’d offer is this: lean in.

And specifically at this point, do NOT pursue a continuing resolution to reopen the government. One was presented to the Democrats; they voted it down via the filibuster and created the shutdown. They had their chance, now it’s time to think bigger and leave them in the dust.

Instead of trying to negotiate with them on a short-term spending measure, work on the 12 appropriations bills and pursue regular order on the budget.

You’ll never have better leverage to get a true budget passed for next year than you have right now.

Three of the 12 appropriations bills are in conference right now, and they should be the first priority. Pass the conference reports of those appropriations bills in both houses, and now the government is not fully shut down.

The other nine bills have moved out of committee and are awaiting votes on the House floor. So move them to passage and send them to the Senate.

Do that, and Republicans become the party of a regular budget and not emergency, jammed-up CR’s. Which is where you want to be.

In normal circumstances, this would be an open invitation to obstruction by the Democrats. But right now, when their obstruction has already shut down the government, the leverage is extreme. They’ll beg for a CR but they’ve already filibustered it, so now they can have the appropriations bills and their objections will have to be specific and germane. That is not the field they want to play on.

Don’t fall into the CR trap. You offered a CR in good faith and it was rebuffed. So now drag the process through regular order and let’s see just how badly they want to obstruct it while Russ Vought is firing all their friends in the bureaucracy and shrinking the budget baseline.