Missing the Point

Missing the Point

Yesterday, the United States Government set a dubious record:  the longest government shut down in American History.  This shutdown has gone on for three weeks:  over 800,000 government workers either aren’t working at all, or perhaps worse, are required to work without pay.  It’s not just about their lost or delayed wages; it’s also about the services they are unable to perform.  Farmers are waiting for loans to buy seed, brewers are waiting for licenses to brew, small businesses depending on SBA loans are stymied, local governments are cutting bus services because of stalled Federal Grants.

These are the less known examples:  we are all aware of the trash piling up in the National Parks.  They aren’t closed; that would impact “civilians” too much, so instead they are left open and unprotected.  At Joshua Tree National Park, vandals are literally cutting the Joshua Trees to gain access to the back-country for four-wheeling.  At Yellowstone, Shenandoah and on the National Mall; the trash accumulates.  Should the shutdown continue, the SNAP (food stamp) program will be effected, non-agent employees of the FBI will be furloughed, the Federal Courts will be curtailed, and tax returns may not be processed.

The shutdown is all about the President and the Congress.  President Trump wants $5 Billion for building “WALL” on the Mexican border, Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, while willing to provide money for border protection, won’t give him his WALL.  While both sides have tried to negotiate, it has all come down to WALL, and neither side is willing to budge.  The shutdown goes on.

But there are some consequences of the shutdown that are benefitting the President, and others who support him.  Those consequences make it even less likely that the shutdown will end soon.

The first, and most obvious, is it takes the focus off of the Mueller Investigation.  It seems clear that it is coming to a conclusion; in the next couple months the Special Counsel will be issuing indictments, perhaps even of the President’s children.  The shutdown has quieted much of that talk (though the New York Timesarticle reporting that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation into the President seems to have risen above the shutdown “noise.”)  

As long as the President sees himself as the focus of news coverage because of the shutdown, it also keeps the new Democratic House of Representatives from stealing the spotlight. I’m sure the President isn’t happy when Speaker Pelosi, or even worse, Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, gets headlines.

But there are other hidden “benefits” for the President as well.  The Federal Courts have slowed down the progress of most civil litigation, and it will come to a halt if the shutdown continues.  The President is facing a number of civil suits, particularly the emoluments case in the District of Columbia.  He still faces a lawsuit from Stormy Daniels, and a lawsuit about First Amendment violations of multiple “Trump enemies.”

While the Federal shutdown impacts Federal cases, that aren’t slowing the work of the New York State Attorney General, particularly her actions regarding the Trump Foundation and Trump Organization violations of New York State tax law.

One way the shutdown might end is if Republican Senators feel the pressure from their constituents to make the government work.  The problem is that Republican Senators are even more sensitive to pressure from their financial base, particularly the huge money interests represented by billionaires like the Koch brothers.  Until “the money turns” it’s not likely those Senators will turn on the President.

The Cato Institute is a conservative think tank, founded by the far right billionaire brothers.  This is the Institutes’ view of the shutdown in an article titled “Government shutdown exposes how big government has become.”  Here’s some excerpts:

…And now, because the TSA is the only screening organization we have, the shutdown may affect the entire nation’s air travel…The loss of officers, while we’re already shorthanded, will create a massive security risk for American travelers…but political battles would not impact such important activities if they were separated from the federal government. Many advanced nations, including Britain and France, have privatized their screening or moved it to the control of local airports.  If we followed suit, there would not be just one “pipeline” for trainees because airports could contract services from numerous companies. (Response Action Network)

With an overall goal of privatizing almost every government function, the Cato Institute is using the shutdown to try to prove that the government is unreliable.  If their sponsor Koch Brothers want to use the shutdown to prove their point, they are unlikely to encourage the Republican Senators they finance to end the crisis.

Ending the shutdown will depend on pressure on all sides.  While the President is likely to hold firm to WALL, the critical balance will be Federal worker pressure on Democrats and constituent pressure on Republican legislators.  Congress could open the government over the President’s objections – but it would take a two-thirds vote to do it.  That’s not likely, but with a President, and some members of Congress, with less obvious reasons for keeping the government closed, that might be missing the point anyway.