Wednesday, May 3, 2017

A good old fashioned government shut down!

So many on the left are upset that the President suggested that the Government may need another "Shut down" to fix the mess. At first glance it seems hard to understand exactly why, as the obvious impression would suggest that Trump is actually preemptively allowing himself to be blamed for any shut down that may happen. We all know how that goes... right?


But, at second glance the President is actually suggesting that a Government shutdown would not necessarily be a bad thing, and that he is actually willing to take the responsibility for such a shut down. In fact, the President has given himself several months to set the table for a possible shut down, and lay out exactly what would be needed to avoid it.

I might expect that the President may actually start to cite why a shut down might actually be good, rather than bad. Perhaps he will sell it as a chance to see actually how non-essential our non-essential government agencies really are. Perhaps he might suggest that if things are not as bad as some might expect, that it could lead to some real trimming of these Government services. He may be willing to argue that a shut down will expose big government pork for big government pork.

But ultimately, by not playing by the conventional rules of running scared from a shut down, it may tilt the playing field. By embracing the shut down, and setting the table for what priorities he needs to see to avoid it... he probably provides himself with some real leverage. If you don't care if you hit the other car head on and crash to a burning death, then you are at an advantage in the classic game of chicken.

Ultimately he gets to play bad cop as the political player who is not up for reelection in 2018. He could play himself against not only Democrats, but Congress as a whole... demanding his fair share of the negotiations as President. The more simple and easily understandable he makes it, the better chance of political success he has.

Simply put, he could pick two or three priorities... such as money for the wall... simply state unequivocally that he will veto any spending bill that does not include his simple priorities, and make it crystal clear that he is willing to let the chips fall where they may.

6 comments:

Indy Voter said...

Trump willing to take responsibility?

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

Loretta said...

Almost as funny as Hillary accepting responsibility and defeat without a "but"......eh.

Anonymous said...

Blogger Loretta Russo said...
Almost as funny as Hillary accepting responsibility and defeat without a "but"......eh.
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heh. you beat me to it.

trump has taken the "responsibility" known as the presidency. a responsibility hillary will never know.

Loretta said...

"trump has taken the "responsibility" known as the presidency. a responsibility hillary will never know."

The Spirits are smiling bigly!

wphamilton said...

There have been almost 20 federal government shutdowns since the Carter Administration. Are you suggesting that Trump wants one now because he's unsure what will happen?

In my opinion, it's more likely an outgrowth of the over-simple conservative thinking that I've heard since high school - that since government is "bad", even a short shutdown is "good" and the longer it is the better.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, it's more likely an outgrowth of the over-simple conservative thinking that I've heard since high school - that since government is "bad", even a short shutdown is "good" and the longer it is the better.
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well wp, what i notice when the government "shuts down" is that the sky does not fall, there is not panic in the streets, those of us in the private sector get up and go to work that day, and the world as we know it does not end.

there's a certain irony in government shutdowns and the like -

in mid-march we had a pretty good whomper of a snow storm, measuring on average about two feet in NY's capitol district, the seat of state government. the governor issued an executive order allowing all "non-essential" state employees to stay home from work for a couple days until the storm passed and the clean up was completed. those of us in the [private sector who actually work for a living and provide the tax $$$ to run the government were left to wonder...

...if all these folks are "non-essential" why do they have a government job in the first place?

i would note that these government "workers" are generally people who, if we were not paying them to wobble into a state office building and post on facebook all day, would be folks we'd be paying welfare to anyway. so at least we give them somewhere to go to do nothing productive as opposed to having them stay at home and do nothing.