The US government has been closed for 24 days because of Trump’s intransigence. As a matter of fact, it’s not the first time this happens. The longest government shutdown standing lasted 21 days during Clinton’s presidency. However, back then it was the Republican Congress majority that refused to approve the federal budget. They demanded budget cuts for Medicaid healthcare coverage (for the most vulnerable sectors) and Medicare (for the elders who were retiring). Clinton won the public opinion battle at the time, but a fiscal negotiation took place that allowed him to present a 7-year budget plan to bring the fiscal deficit to zero. In fact, Clinton exceeded expectations because the country reached a fiscal surplus (the last and one of the few the US has known), in the midst of economic growth and important social advances. In that confrontation, the Republicans were stuck in an effort to reduce the fiscal deficit, which they believed was impossible without cuts to health spending. Yet, Clinton showed them that it was achievable to reduce the deficit without sacrificing the most disadvantaged sectors. The debate, however, was sensible and rational. And the parties were willing to admit different options.
This time, it is Trump’s promise for a wall that is holding the federal government shutdown. Accordong to his campaign promise, this wall should extend along the southern border of the US and Mexico would pay for it. Of course, the wall would not be more than a monument to xenophobia. Congress majorities—Republican in the Senate, and Democrat in the House—, along with the opinions of both experts and federal agencies have presented options to strengthen border security without spending 26 billion dollars building a wall, as the mogul president suggested in an irrational fashion.
Meanwhile, communication infrastructure in the US is in a maintenance crisis and overwhelmed by the urgency of new projects: highways, trains, public transport, bridges, ports and airports have fallen far behind those in countries with comparable development. The physical plant of public schools also requires new investments. And not to mention the healthcare system. Finally, the challenge of renewable energy investments is perhaps one of the greatest real opportunities for expansion and economic growth that the US has today.
Before the new Democrat House of Representatives majority swore in on January 3rd, in an impressively bipartisan consensus, the one hundred senators approved a temporary budget. It allowed the federal government to operate and provide a significant investment in border security to the authorities, without need of the aforementioned wall. Trump said he would veto the proposal if it came to his Office, and the then Republican House majority stopped the proposal. After the Democrats were installed, Nancy Pelosi put together a proposal, based on the Senate’s bipartisan one, that counts with the majority vote.
Now, the leader of the Republican Senate majority Senator Mitch McConnel refuses to take the new proposal to a vote in the Upper House. His intention is to please the whim of the unnecessary wall, which obviously Mexico will never pay for. If McConnel were to take the proposal to the Senate, it could have a qualified majority in both chambers, and the government could move on without falling for Trump’s demands. Why does he stand in the way?
Trump’s wall has an influence on an important sector of the Republican base, misinformed by the manipulation of the anti-immigrant narrative. While the vast majority of the country blames Trump (and the Republicans) for the government shutdown, and disagrees with the wall, the conservative electorate is divided with a favorable tendency around Trump’s demagogic rhetoric. McConnel plays along, because that position affects senators and congressmen who, like him, depend on that radical republican electorate for parliamentary elections in two years.
In the meantime, the federal government shutdown has implications. Some essential services are still working, but other vital agencies are closed. Their officials, more than 700 thousand employees, were not been able to collect their salaries on Christmas and New Years. As the shutdown escalates, other government services are affected due to a lack of authority in fiscal spending. The impact surpasses national parks, museums and the offices of education or urban development. For example, since the fourth quarter of 2018, the Small Business Administration has more than 30 billion dollars in guarantees and financing that cannot be closed and disbursed until the government resumes its operations, because the staff is in the payroll without salary coverage.
Furthermore, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cannot operate. In consequence, hundreds of millions of commercial papers, bonds and shares are waiting to be issued. The operation of the airports is not yet affected, also the personnel of the federal agency in charge of civil aeronautics cannot advance in matters such as the authorization of new routes, on which the airlines business operations depend on. In short, the impacts are many and very critical. Therefore, some Republicans who do not dare to confront Trump have suggested a temporary agreement to reopen the government and leave the question of the wall for the final budget discussion. That also did not please the whimsical Trump. On the contrary, during his national address on TV January 8th, Trump threatened to keep the Government closed and declare a “national emergency” to start his wall without Congress authorization.
Constitutionalists point out that this action would be a presidential overreach, violating the law and the constitution. Nonetheless, Trump insists, in a threatening tone, despite not having a national emergency. His desire to overrule the legislative branch seems taken out of the Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan authoritative regime. But this is not Maduro and Venezuela; we are talking about Trump and the US. And what is worse, in a gigantic exercise of demagoguery to appeal to the voters of states where the steel industry is concentrated, Trump said that not only could he decree the national emergency to raise the wall, but also now decided to build it not of concrete, but steel!
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently tweeted remembering the shameful and obscure text of the Ku Klux Klan manifesto (emanating from its nefarious Convention of 1924), which says: “Build a wall of steel, a wall as high as Heaven” against immigrants. It’s a very bad coincidence for Trump to be using these same lines to hold our government and people hostage of his irrational campaign promises.
Para español lea: La infraestructura de EEUU está en crisis mientras Trump pide plata para el muro
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