In a December 28 column in the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove suggested that if the Shutdown is not soon resolved, the public will blame both parties. Rove is surely right. Both Trump (and his enablers in the Senate) and Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats will deserve much of the blame they get. How exactly blame will be apportioned remains to be seen, but that is largely irrelevant: there will be more than enough to go around.
Trump is, of course, a leading candidate for blame. His insistence on a wall, or something, anything, that could be called a wall clearly has more to do with obeisance to his base than any genuine concern for border security. Trump largely gave the game away when he tweeted that: “Much of the Wall has already been fully renovated or built.” None of what has been renovated or built consists of the pre-cast concrete slabs that Trump described so lyrically in his campaign. Nor does it consist of the steel slats with which he now seems enamored and for which he gave us a sketch on Twitter. (Oddly, The media did not seem to inquire as to where that design came from or whether there are any cost estimates attached to it. And what happened to the very different prototypes Homeland Security acquired at some cost several months ago?) In any case, Trump has never, so far as we know, ever explained just exactly how the $5.6 billion he now seeks was arrived at or what it would be spent for.
For their part, Democrats are far from innocent parties. As eager as Trump is to have something he can call a Wall, Democrats are just as determined not to fund anything that would fit that description. This mainly semantic gulf, which captures the quality of a Fourth Grade playground debate, should not be unsolvable, particularly in view of Trump’s newly flexible notion of a “wall.” Let us have some funding for new or rebuilt “physical barriers” that does not expressly include or exclude a wall. Both parties can then claim victory (“It’s a wall”; “It certainly is not”) and federal workers can return to their jobs, getting paid, and serving the public.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that Democrats will not spend a dollar for the Wall, which she described as an “immorality,” and that kind of position and that kind of rhetoric are unrealistic and unhelpful. Democrats have approved funding for physical barriers in the past and almost certainly will again. The amount should be negotiable. According to reports, Trump made an offer through Pence and Mulvaney to accept $2.5 billion. But after that offer was not accepted, and did not produce a counter-offer, it is not surprising that Trump withdrew it and reverted to a demand of $5.6 billion. (As anyone with negotiating experience is aware, no party wants to “negotiate against himself.”) But Trump’s withdrawal should be no more than a speed bump if negotiations can be carried on with good faith and some flexibility on the part of both sides. I have very little enthusiasm for the Wall but Trump did campaign on it and did get elected. RINOcracy.com has for several years been preaching to Republicans the need to compromise and the sermon applies to Democrats as well.
Karl Rove and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal separately proposed a way out of the impasse: some funding for a wall in exchange for legalization for DACA beneficiaries, similar to a deal that seemed promising several months ago but fell apart. Such a compromise still makes sense, but it is too complicated to negotiate under the pressure of a continuing shutdown. A simpler deal, some funding for an ambiguous physical barrier seems more within the skill sets of the parties. Those limited skill sets would probably benefit from the help of an experienced mediator (Kenneth Feinberg comes to mind, but any experienced mediator would do). Such a mediator would engage in confidential “shuttle diplomacy” between the parties, giving each a realistic sense of what is doable and what is not. No doubt the parties would recoil from admitting that they need such help, but even without it, they really ought to be able to figure this one out.
To the extent a solution “out of the box” is required, I will offer one. You will hear this here for the first time (and, alas, I am afraid, for the last). Trump has claimed that Mexico will pay for the Wall through increased tariffs under the revised NAFTA agreement known as USCMA. Put aside the facts that a) tariffs are paid not by Mexico but by U.S. companies and consumers; b) USMCA has not been approved by Congress and may not be; and c) no trade expert foresees a significant increase in tariffs under the USCMA. Despite all that, why not take Trump at his word? Stipulate that any increase in tariff revenue from imports from Mexico in 2019, compared to 2018, be sequestered, in an amount up to $5.6 billion, for construction of a “wall” (however defined). Voila, paid for by Mexico, at least in Trumpspeak.
Negotiations between Trump and Pelosi are clearly complicated by the fact they are both in varying degrees captives of their respective bases. Trump’s captivity may be the more pronounced, but Pelosi’s has also become apparent and may well come to be equally significant (for example, perhaps, in a tsunami of demands for Trump’s impeachment without regard to prospects for conviction by the Senate). The parties’ bases, and the baser instincts they stimulate, are enough to make some of us think wistfully of a third party. Anyone who has followed politics for a few decades knows how extraordinarily difficult it would be to create a viable third party, but these are extraordinary times. If the center is to hold, it cannot remain silent.
Finally, a word about the 800,000 federal employees who are furloughed or working without pay. Trump has been conspicuously indifferent to their plight, but the harm to them is real and it will grow quickly if the shutdown continues. Mortgages and rents must be paid, tuition bills arrive, some medical treatments are needed now and more will be soon, and food must be put on tables. Some employees will have sufficient savings to tide them over, but many will not. The shutdown is a disaster, and disaster relief should be available just as it is in the case of hurricanes, floods and fires. Funds could be raised from a public appeal and distributed on the basis of need in the form of no-interest loans. Possibly the Red Cross could be persuaded to take on this assignment although it is outside their usual focus on disasters of the natural variety. If they are not willing to help, another organization, such as the Gates Foundation, might step forward. In any case, the affected employees are collateral damage in this senseless brawl. They deserve our support.
On the subject of the wall’s “immorality,” there are any number of components of Trump’s immigration “policies” that are profoundly immoral, as noted below. But I agree that calling the wall one of them is not helpful. It would be extravagantly wasteful, impractical and ineffective, and thus is well worth opposing and denouncing as demagogic nonsense. But the Democrats’ use of the “i” word here just makes it impossible to compromise.
And as for your splendid out-of-the-box (tongue partly in cheek?) “solution” for how to pay for it, I fear there’s a fatal flaw (as with most tariff-based “solutions” to economic problems). It’s my belief that tariffs generally pay for themselves — in reverse. In addition to being a tax on the consumers of the country that imposes them (which does at least flow into the federal treasury), they tend to reduce economic and profitable activity by more than enough to offset the revenue “gains.” In addition, I think Trump’s current version of how Mexico will pay for the wall may not be tariff based, but is instead the unsupportable claim that the new USMCA will generate so much more profitable activity in the US economy that it will reverse our current trade deficit with Mexico — continuing to rely on the absurd notion that a negative trade balance with another country represents a net revenue outflow.
Alas, I don’t know if even Ken Feinberg could mediate this one (leave aside that as a former aide to Ted Kennedy, Trump would never abide his involvement).
Doug, I would like to nominate you to be the mediator between the two immovable factions. Your “Tariff Sequester” seems like a real way out. Also, I think the Democrats could magnanimously cede a billion or two for a “wall”; I have never heard any definitive statement about how long the “wall” has to be, so build as much of a wall as you can with the allotted amount and both sides can claim victory. In the meantime, I think some of the border protection workforce is shutdown, so the government shutdown is harming the very “national security” that Trump is so hung up on.
The strongest point is your request to define where the $ billion would be spent: how much for an electronic wall, how much for a physical wall, how much for more judges, how much for a drone wall, how many more agents for a human wall? Just saying we need the money and giving no details is poor business practice.
The slogans “Build the wall” and “Lock her up” belong with the other useless words publicized by media frenzy. Publicize solutions, not negative news.
Doug: Having the U.S. budget held hostage by this school yard bully and his congressional cronies for any reason seems absurd. It demeans and tarnishes us all. If the wall is real to our president where is the map of where it is missing and what its proposed structural parts would be? If this is an engineering problem with cost analysis components, we’re really good at this kind of work. But alas I agree it is indeed just a shouting point to put on a ball cap. If enough of us put in a dollar perhaps he would shut up about it and get on with more important issues to “Make Todos Las Americas Great Again.”
This is awfully well composed. However, it is a mistake to assume that any compromise is possible with a president who is seemingly incapable of any nuanced understanding of immigration policy and, just as bad, too convinced of his own infallibility to ever admit a mistake.
One should see the wall for what it really is: the Frankenstein monster of a wildly erratic, extrenely narcissitic and woefully uninforned chief executive. We have seen how feckless and corrupt Tumpt is — whether it be in his absurd claim to be the greatest of presidents, his inability to nominate or keep competent cabinet mminiisters and staff, or his relentless attacks on our judiciary, our free press and our world’s major democratic institutions, including NATO, the Import-Export Bank, the G-7, the United Nationns, etc.
It is simply wrong to say “there is enough blame to go around” for the latest (and longest) government shutdown — one that cripples anti-terrorism efforts like the TSA, fighting forest fires and other natural disasters, helping the least fortunate among us have food on the table and essentiall medical care, etc.
No, Mr Trump and his sychophhantic followers (including Mitch McConnel) are chiefly responsible for the shutdown. It is them — not the House Speaker or Democrats — who will pay a huge price if it continues.
Furthermore, Pelosi is right when she says “walls are immoral.” Just as it is immoral to rip children away from their mothers who seek to flee violence and persecution in Central America. A wise chief excutive, wotking together with Congress and our courts, would seek to help our southern neighbors by strengthening theirr enomomies and promoting democratic governments.
Our country is great because it has been a welcoming and democratic country in which anyone could grow, learn and prosper Thus, we do not need walls, but windows and doors.
Anyone who doubts how much harm president Trump has done to our country and how unfit he is to lead should read David Leonhardt’s piece in today’s New York Tmes, “The People vs. Donald J. Trump” (Sunday Review, June 6, 2019(.
Doug, I believe Pelosi said she would give Trump 1$ for the wall – and not a cent more. As reported in the Daily Mail ([dailymail.co.uk/news] I like to cite foreign reports when possible to avoid any hint of partisan-ship, assuming such sources have no partisan axes to grind): “Asked if she would give Trump $1 for a wall to reopen the government, Pelosi said: ‘One dollar? Yeah, one dollar.”
Regarding the government employees being affected by this shutdown, I suggest the Dems (and responsible Republicans, if there be such) put on the table legislation that would require that any mortgage, rent, car payment or any other such periodic, scheduled payments be deferred for those employees and that the payment schedules be extended without penalty of any kind by the same number of days these persons are subject to the (or any future) shutdown.
Disaster relief from Trump Tantrums! I love it! More seriously, your comments about the plight of the furloughed federal employees is very well taken, and the impact will propagate out from those 800,000 federal employees to many others remarkably quickly.
Also more seriously, I really like your proposed solution to this impasse. Likewise the idea of a third party mediator; but how can this work when one party routinely reneges on positions and promises?
But what I’ve finally realized is that Trump is unlikely to accept ANY deal that purports to fund his Wall because I don’t think he wants a Wall. He wants a red hot issue about a Wall that he can reliably bray about to his base to stir them up and distract from all his failings. If he was really focused on building his Wall instead of shouting about it, I think we’d be hearing more about ways he has finagled funding already available to him to make some well-publicized progress. And that’s a very pessimistic sign about how long his shutdown may last. I doubt he has a clue how to get out of this mess.
The idea of an impartial mediator is interesting. Has it ever been done between parties of this type (congress vs. pres,, house vs. senate, Dems vs. Repubs)? On second thought however, is is a shame that such a solution to what should be an easy process is even being considered.
Doug,
I don’t see how an exchange of DACA-legalization for wall-funding would work. With all due respect to Karl Rove, I’m not sure Trump listens to pragmatic horse-traders; as he recently made clear, he listens only to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh…and it seems to me that they (or for sure Ms. Coulter) hate the “dreamers” even more than they love the “wall.”
Or do you disagree?
Monica
Compelling Blog. Yes, both parties. We know it seems inhumane not to help people seeking asylum from persecution and/or poverty, but that’s half the world. America, with this enormous debt service, after 9/11, is no longer fiscally able to provide that much welfare. Had Congress passed the Comprehensive Reform Act of 2007, much of the current furor over the wall, over immigration would have subsided. Pundits, for years, have been crying out for a moral revolution in D.C., asking our legislators to join the human race and care about people. Look no further. GAH!
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