Republicans Rolled by Democrats- Trump Signs Dirty Deal to Fund Military

If ever there was a time to “ditch Mitch,” that is to say Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the proof in that pudding came with this week’s dirty dealing that he and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) put together with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Not even giving their own caucus a chance to read the 2,300-page, $1.3 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill, which essentially funds most all of the Democrats wish list- Planned Parenthood, ObamaCare and VA hospital supplementals, building maintenance for unoccupied federal buildings and a host of other spendthrift wastes of taxpayers’ dollars, the Republican leadership nevertheless agreed to a bill completely devoid of the promises President Donald Trump made in winning the 2016 presidential election. Absent was any substantial funding for a border wall, save for nominal maintenance and repair of existing and outdated fencing, absent was any reinforcement for, and additional hiring of ICE agents, or any provision to cut federal funding from sanctuary cities- cities blatantly in violation to federal immigration laws.

It was as if McConnel and Ryan said to Schumer and Pelosi, “You can have anything you want, just as long as we can restore funding to the military that was denied during the eight years of the Obama administration.”

So delighted that they were able to force this dirty deal upon a Republican majority in both houses, Schumer and Pelosi were ebullient in what they were able to pull off against their impotent and feckless counterparts, McConnell and Ryan. Schumer even added, “Today, we as Democrats were able to achieve more in the minority than we ever were able to achieve when we were in the majority.”

Force-fed to their caucus twenty-four hours before yet another government shutdown was to take place, cowardly Republicans hurried to vote for the measure before immediately splitting town to begin their spring/Easter break, dumping the dirty deal into the president’s lap and putting the onus on him to avoid a government shutdown. Only ninety-five members of the 238-member House Republican caucus, and only twenty-four members of the 51-member Senate Republican caucus, had the courage to oppose their leadership and vote against the bill. Hence, the majority of the Republican caucus (143 Republicans in the House and 27 Republicans in the Senate) effectively turned on the president, as well as the electorate who swept them into office, and joined with Democrats to dump a dirty deal onto the nation.

Trump immediately saw this dirty deal for what it was, even musing (and tweeting) about vetoing the bill, citing inaction on DACA and inadequate funding for construction of a border wall. In the end, however, Trump caved into signing the bill at the behest of his Defense Secretary James Mattis, who stressed the urgent need for increased military funding, to offset the decay in military readiness that was the result of Obama-era sequestration. While many who support the president wished that he had forced the issue, and veto the spending bill, it was Trump who decided to place military readiness over fiscal restraint, and sign the dirty deal, after all.

In signing the legislation, the president vowed that he would “never again sign such a bill,” and called for Congress to pass legislation allowing line-item veto authority to a president, something that all but a few state governors already have to effect fiscal restraint. His call for line-item veto authority will undoubtedly be ignored in the House, where that chamber jealously guards their spending authority.

Trump also called on the Senate to end the filibuster rule, which enables only a few members of the minority party in the Senate to control budgetary and spending legislation. Trump’s calls for ending the filibuster rule will nevertheless be ignored in the Senate, because those ego-maniacs will never surrender the power they hold over the rest of the country, and McConnel is more wedded to Senate tradition than serving the needs of the nation- a stance quite common to anti-Trump/neverTrump Republicans, like Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ).

In forcing this dirty deal onto the president, Republicans in Congress seem bound and determined to surrender their majority status, by abandoning their president and thus enabling Democrats to seize the majority, so that they can then impeach a president on the grounds that they just don’t like him.

Outside the insidious beltway surrounding the political “red-light district” that is Washington, D.C., there is a substantial base of Trump’s electorate who demands that Republican leadership fulfill its oft-made promises of fiscal and budgetary restraint, and to enact the president’s legislative agenda. Sadly, this base is not represented in a Congress where partisan differences are practically non-existent, and Republicans have become merely a laughing stock to Democrats, like Schumer and Pelosi, who are able to pursue a nefarious agenda unfettered by minority status.

Inside that same beltway, however, resides a lone crusader who is willing to take on the establishment, who seeks to upend business as usual, and save his country from its own demise. The deep state of government tries to sabotage his presidency at every turn. The media who covers him, with lies and deceit, will stop at nothing to bring him down. His own party has abandoned him, colluding with the opposition to wreck his efforts and it is these Republican weasels, who sell their souls to the almighty dollar and thus do so at their country’s peril.

Yet, this lone crusader, one Donald Trump, plods on in a quest to “Make America Great Again.” In the face of almost-universal opposition and obstruction, he is a man who just wants to make good on his promises to the people- the very people who have lost any semblance of representation in our nation’s capital.

 

-Drew Nickell, 24 March 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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