Republicans have a stranglehold on the federal government, yet President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are both trying to blame Democrats for any potential government shutdown.
Just a day after passing and bragging about a tax bill that heavily favors corporations and the rich over the middle class and the poor, Trump and his Republican sycophants launched an attack against Democrats on Thursday accusing them of wanting a government shutdown to rain on their parade.
Trump began the assault on his Twitter account.
House Democrats want a SHUTDOWN for the holidays in order to distract from the very popular, just passed, Tax Cuts. House Republicans, don’t let this happen. Pass the C.R. TODAY and keep our Government OPEN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2017
And then Paul Ryan followed suit on CNBC. He tweeted:
“I think the Democrats are going to try to play some partisan games today because they would love nothing more than to see a government shutdown, blame us for having it, and step on our tax cut message, tax reform message. We’re just bringing a clean, what we call vanilla CR — no games, no sneaky things. Just a continuing resolution to get us through this moment to get us into next year. It’s as clean and simple as possible. It’s what the Senate on both sides of the aisle are asking us for.”
Here’s the video via CNBC.
In other words, Republicans are hoping to just kick the can down the road for a few more weeks without giving Democrats anything they want in exchange for their support.
The current spending expires on Friday and the government will shut down on Saturday if a new spending bill is not passed.
But again, we should point out that Republicans have the majority in both the House and Senate. If they need Democrats to pass a spending bill, the answer is simple. Give them something they want that they can vote for. You know, just like Republicans gave GOP Senators Bob Corker and Susan Collins something they wanted in the tax bill in exchange for their votes.
In this case, Democrats want protection for children of undocumented immigrants, also known as “DREAMERS,” and protection for social safety net programs.
As for Trump’s claim that his tax bill is “popular,” that’s just a plain lie since most polls show that a majority of Americans oppose it.
Democrats do not want a government shutdown, but they aren’t just going to lay down and let Republicans walk all over them either. This has nothing to do with wanting to rain on Trump’s parade on taxes. Republicans need some Democrats to cross the aisle in support of a new spending bill. That means there needs to be a compromise. Trump can’t just order Democrats to vote for something. He needs to bend a little, which is something he refuses to do. So, if there is a government shutdown, Republicans will be to blame because they refuse to work with Democrats.
It’s really that simple.
Featured Image: YouTube screenshot.
