Government shuts down over policy, not money

The longest federal government shutdown on record is over, but another shutdown appears possible, even likely, in less than a month.

The December-January shutdown ended with President Trump announcing he would sign a bill reopening the government after 35 days and two federal paydays that didn't pay off. He agreed to a deal that he could have had 35 days earlier, but he thought it advantageous to play brinkmanship with federal agencies and employees.

What is confounding about this shutdown is that it wasn't about debt limits or federal budget deficits or excessive spending, all of which were at the heart of earlier shutdowns. Conservatives have decried the economic stupidity of spending more money than you take in, year after year after year since before Ronald Reagan decried socialism. A government shutdown over excessive spending at least reduced spending for the period of the shutdown.

But this latest shutdown, which Trump said he would proudly take responsibility for, had nothing to do with federal spending or the deficit. It wasn't about money, although Trump was insisting on $5.7 billion for a border wall or else! It was about policy, the policy of building walls to keep people out of the United States. Trump had led cheers of "Build That Wall" at his campaign rallies and had insisted that Mexico would pay for the wall. No payments came from Mexico, and Democrats in the House also refused to insert payments for a physical wall into pending budget bills.

Both sides of this debate have some reasonable points. Trump says there is a crisis on the southern border with Mexico; flows of immigrants, most of them crossing in violation of federal laws, are overwhelming federal border security. He wants a solid wall to halt the "invasion."

Democrats point out that any wall can climbed over, tunneled over or blown up by determined migrants. They are willing to increase border security spending on enforcement and surveillance. More border patrolmen and immigration judges can expedite the refugee and asylum backlog and make immigration more manageable. They will give Trump the money he wants, but not for a solid wall that doesn't really address the problem.

A congressional committee will look for a compromise that will keep the government open after the mid-month deadline, but Trump might reject their proposal. A long-term solution to the immigration problem has to involve improvements in Central American economies and law enforcement in order to give desperate citizens opportunities and hope in their native countries rather than north of the border. Combined with better U.S. border security and crackdowns on corruption south of the border, the "crisis" at the border will be resolved without a solid wall.

 

Democracy is defeated in Raleigh negotiations

Is democracy a failure?

If you look at how the North Carolina state budget has been conceived and presented, you'd have to conclude that democracy doesn't work. If democracy worked, the General Assembly would have a rational, transparent procedure for bringing together the interests of all 170 members of the legislature who would all serve the interests of their constituents who elected them to office.

But it hasn't worked quite that way. When the House and Senate passed conflicting versions of the state budget, the differences should have been resolved by a committee representing both chambers whose members would compromise on the differences in the two versions.

That's not exactly what happened. A handful of senators and representatives met behind closed doors and hashed out a compromise of sorts, but they also radically changed many provisions of law that were not, strictly speaking, part of the budget and had not been part of either chamber's budget bill. The provisions fundamentally changed state policies (including shuffling departments of state government) and even arbitrarily killed a long-planned light rail service without any public debate on the provision.

You can call these changes dictatorial or arbitrary or oligarchical or contemptuous, but you can't really call it democracy. What went on behind closed doors in Raleigh these past couple of weeks had little to do with democracy.

If we hope to compromise, we must speak the same language

No one doubts that Congress has difficulty getting anything done these days, as partisan belligerence bubbles just below the boiling point year after year.

Has anyone considered that there might be a language barrier?

It's not that Hispanic or other ethnic groups have gained seats in Congress or that women have won seats and do not speak (or think) the same way as men or that northerners can't understand southerners' drawl or that wide-open westerners think differently than intellectual, crowded easterners.

The different factions in Congress and throughout the country simply don't speak the same language. They have different words to describe the same issues. For example:
• One side's "Woman's Right to Choose" is the other side's "Right to Life." Pro-choice or pro-life. Both sides avoid the more straightforward word — abortion.
• One side's "Marriage Equality" is the other side's "Redefinition of Marriage."
• One side's "Right to Carry" is the other side's "Gun Violence."
• One side's "Election Fraud Prevention" is the other side's "Restriction of Voting Rights."
• One side's "Balanced Budget" is the other side's "Shredding the Safety Net."
• One side's "Tax Reform" is the other side's "Soak the Rich."
• One side's "Judicial Activism" is the other side's "Protecting the Constitution."

All of these catch phrases are not intended to enhance the chances for compromise. On the contrary, they are designed to further divide constituencies and turn out the vote for either side. Until we can agree on what to call issues and policies — until we speak the same language — we have no hope for reaching compromises on important issues. 

Forum doesn't cure health care reform

Yesterday's health care forum was an extraordinary political and governmental event, a formal meeting of the executive and legislative branches to seek a compromise on one of the most controversial pieces of legislation of the decade. But it seems unlikely that it will result in a legislative breakthrough. Although discussions were reported to be civil, neither side had an epiphany that would bring about a deal.

The rhetoric indicates both sides are deluding themselves. Republicans postured as the defenders of the public, who, they said, doesn't want health care reform. They cited polls showing opposition to the health care bill pushed by Democrats in the Senate and the House. But the Republican leaders are ignoring polls showing widespread, nearly universal dissatisfaction with the cobbled-together, unintended system of job-based health care insurance we now have. The public decries the high costs of coverage, which most workers are sharing with their employers, the arbitrary and unexplained changes in coverage, the arcane and inexplicable rules about what is and isn't covered, and the fundamental unfairness of denials of coverage for pre-existing conditions or other reasons. The public as a whole thinks the current system leaves a lot to be desired. If Republicans expect to gain by keeping the same old system without any changes while health care costs continue to rise exponentially, they're deluding themselves and misleading the public.

Democrats, however, seem to have a tin ear when it comes to constituents' desires. Most voters want the current system fixed, meaning that their primary complaints with health insurance would be resolved. That incremental reform should not be so complicated, but Democrats in Congress have pushed complex bills that would overhaul the entire system of health insurance (while leaving health care itself largely untouched). Various aspects of these massive bills raise objections from the public, and conservative opponents of the legislation have harped on these individual provisions, sometimes in misleading and disingenuous ways.

Now Democratic leaders are threatening to push their legislation through using a simple-majority reconciliation provision, avoiding a procedural vote requiring 60 senators to end debate. Although Democrats have 59 reliable votes in the Senate, using reconciliation would be a suicidal maneuver. Yes, reconciliation has been used in the past, as Majority Leader Harry Reid has said, but the rare invoking of reconciliation has been limited to final budget votes, not to substantive new laws as complicated as this one.

Democrats should be able to push through many, if not most, of the provisions in their overall plan through a series of individual bills, each one addressing a health care concern, such as denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. They should be able to attract a number of Republican votes on many of the provisions. If Republicans refuse to take part, they will be revealed as partisan obstructionists more interested in political points than in legislation.

President Obama has taken much of the blame for the failure of health care reform, and he is guilty of misjudging the recalcitrance of both parties. By leaving the legislation up to Congress, avoiding the 1993 mistakes of Bill Clinton, he has tied his popularity to a Congress that is seen as less trustworthy than used car dealers or pool sharks. But give Obama credit for being willing to compromise (although his left-wing supporters were aghast over his shifts).

For all its historic significance, yesterday's health care forum looks like it will not result in any breakthrough, leaving Democrats and Republicans with the task of finding common ground, if they can, on an issue that has sharply divided a public that wants reform but not that reform.