Now in its 33rd day, the unprecedented government shutdown is creating serious strains for the 800,000 federal workers who are either furloughed or going without pay. Some have started looking for new jobs. Others have turned to Uber, Lyft and other gig-economy jobs. Still others are calling out out of frustration. The FBI is complaining that the shutdown is hampering investigations and is calling for lawmakers to at least authorize enough funding to get the DOJ up and running again. Some workers are turning to unemployment assistance. Others are starting to frequent soup kitchens.
But despite it all, Trump and Congressional Democrats are refusing to yield. And a series of votes expected to be held Thursday on competing proposals – one a bid to temporarily reopen the government being pushed by Democrats, the other a compromise proposed by Trump over the weekend that was immediately rejected by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer – have little chance of passing, according to Reuters.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he planned to hold a vote on Thursday on a Democratic proposal that would fund the government for three weeks but does not include the $5.7 billion in U.S.-Mexico border wall funding demanded by President Donald Trump.
Its prospects appeared grim. The House of Representatives has passed several similar bills, but Trump has rejected legislation that does not include border wall funding. McConnell previously said he would not consider a bill the Republican president refused to sign.
McConnell also planned to hold a vote on legislation that would include border wall funding and relief for “Dreamers,” people brought illegally to the United States as children, a compromise Trump proposed on Saturday.
No matter what Trump proposes, it’s likely to meet a frosty response from the Dems, who are insisting that the government be reopened before any deal on immigration can be struck (which effectively means that there wouldn’t be a deal).
Many Democratic leaders dismissed the deal as a “non-starter” and said they would not negotiate on border security before reopening the government. Democrats have said they would not trade a temporary restoration of the immigrants’ protections from deportation in return for a permanent border wall they view as ineffective. In 2017, Trump moved to end the Dreamers’ protections, triggering a court battle.
But not all of the problems are on the Democrats’ side. According to Bloomberg, Donald Trump’s closest advisers are confused about what Trump would be willing to accept as part of a deal with Democrats to reopen government, which has brought negotiations to a grinding halt. What’s worse, Trump’s Congressional liaison Shahira Knight, who has been the president’s chief shutdown negotiator, is reportedly planning to leave the White House in the coming months, a sign that Trump’s chief aides are growing increasingly frustrated with the impasse, Politico reported.
Two of the aides who spoke with BBG on the condition of anonymity outlined two contradictory proposals that they believed might win support from the president.
On Tuesday, people close to the president offered two different views of what he might concede in a possible negotiation. One said Trump wouldn’t accept any deal that didn’t deliver the full $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall that he seeks. Another said he’d be willing to reduce that amount if Democrats come up with concessions of their own.
The diverging views echo complaints from Democrats, who have said it’s impossible to negotiate with Trump because he and his representatives are at odds and make shifting offers that are subject to change at any time. And they’re not alone in that frustration. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stayed silent for the first weeks of the shutdown after Trump suddenly reversed course in December and rejected a spending bill the Republican-led Senate had passed.
Trump, for his part, has kept up his steady twitter assault in recent days, insisting that he won’t cave to the Democrats, and that he would move ahead with holding the State of the Union. Meanwhile, one of his top economic advisors warned that any hit to economic growth from the shutdown during Q1 would lead to higher compensatory growth in Q2.
Which begs the question: Is another explosion of volatility the only thing that could push Trump to compromise?
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2FJUkaL Tyler Durden