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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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From: Alex MG	4/21/2017 12:06:31 PM
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Shutdown showdown Trump is playing chicken with Democrats over border wall funding By Alex Thompson on Apr 21, 2017 President Trump’s administration is scrambling to notch a significant legislative victory before he hits the 100-day mark next week and Democrats are finding themselves in the unusual position of holding all the cards in the negotiations. Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney went public Friday to the Associated Press with the White House’s demands for a spending bill set to pass next week in order to keep the government open: “We want wall funding. We want [immigration] agents. Those are our priorities.” But passing the spending bill next week requires 60 votes in the Senate and Republicans currently only have 52. Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has made clear funding the wall is a line in the sand for Democrats and that they will not support any bill with money for it, setting up a high-stakes game of chicken over funding the federal government. And the Trump administration finds itself lacking the one thing a self-styled dealmaker president prizes most of all: leverage. Without a spending bill next week, the government will shut down on Friday April 28, which would be day 99 of the Trump presidency. With control of all three branches of government, Democrats are betting voters will have to blame Republicans for any shutdown. And given the president’s historically low approval ratings at this early point in his presidency, many congressional Republicans suspect Democrats may be right. As a result, President Trump has been scraping around for a bargaining chip to use in the delicate negotiations. Trump and his administration have repeatedly suggested scrapping Obamacare’s annual $7 billion in insurance premium subsidies that go to low income people but Democrats have publicly been unmoved, confident that Trump again would be blamed for throwing the insurance market into turmoil. Some look to a Kaiser Health tracking poll earlier this month that showed 61 percent of voters saying that “President Trump and Republicans in Congress are now in control of the government and they are responsible for any problems with [Obamacare] moving forward.” Mulvaney told the AP that border wall funding ought to be included in the budget because “elections have consequences” and Democrats “lost the election.” But in a conference call with fellow Democrats Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was unimpressed, saying “We have the leverage and they have the exposure.” It appears so.

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