It appears that part of the government will indeed shut down in four days if the president and Congress do not agree on funding for a border wall.
On that a top Trump official and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) agree, and they said so on competing talk shows over the weekend.
Trump advisor Stephen Miller promised a shutdown if Congress doesn’t get $5 billion in wall funding, and Schumer reiterated that Congress will not approve the $5 billion.
American sovereignty, Miller rightly said, is at stake. As is a good life for the country’s working class. But the Democrats are promoting illegal alien anarchy.
Schumer Says No Way
Speaking to Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press, Schumer reiterated the Democrats’ position he and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set down in a contentious meeting with Trump last week. Trump doesn’t have enough GOP votes to get the funding, and should compromise instead of closing some part of the federal bureaucracy. Deadline: December 21.
“President Trump should understand, there are not the votes for the wall in the House or the Senate,” Schumer said. “He is not going to get the wall in any form.”
“Leader Pelosi and I, offered the president two options as to how to avoid the shutdown,” the New York leftist said. “And we should not let a temper tantrum, threats, push us in the direction of doing something that everybody, even our Republican colleagues, know is wrong. Leader [Mitch] McConnell has said we shouldn’t shut down the government. Chairman [Richard] Shelby has said we shouldn’t shut down the government.”
Trump “shouldn’t use innocent workers as hostage for his temper tantrum to sort of throw a bone to his base,” Schumer averred.
Republicans in Congress “just have to have the guts to tell President Trump he’s off on the deep end here. And all he’s going to get, with his temper tantrum, is a shutdown. He will not get a wall.”
Temper tantrum is an anti-Trump narrative Schumer has been pushing since Trump shut him down in last week’s contentious meeting. Trump said he would proudly take credit for shutting down the government for the sake of border security.
Trump noted that those areas of the wall that have been renovated, or even rebuilt, have dramatically curtailed illegal border crossings.
Miller: Preserving Our Sovereignty
Miller spoke with Margaret Brennan of CBS News. “We’re going to do whatever is necessary to build the border wall to stop this ongoing crisis of illegal immigration,” he said.
“And that means a shutdown?” Brennan inquired.
“If it comes to it, absolutely,” Miller said. “This is a very fundamental issue. At stake is the question of whether or not the United States remains a sovereign country. Whether or not we can establish and enforce rules for entrance into our country. The Democrat Party has a simple choice, they can either choose to fight for America’s working class or to promote illegal immigration. You can’t do both.”
Miller noted that Americans want border security, and that both parties must “come together for the sake of American children, for the sake of children all across this hemisphere, to create a lawful system of immigration.”
On ABC’s This Week, GOP Senator Susan Collins of Maine suggested compromising at the $2.5 billion offered in another bill. “There’s absolutely no excuse to shut down government on this issue or any other issue,” she said. The compromise bill, she said. “provided $2.5 billion this year and over the next ten years to fully fund the border security initiative. That includes not only physical barriers like fences and walls, but also technology, more border patrol agents, more roads to get into these remote areas.”
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois said a “sea-to-shining-sea wall” wouldn’t stop anything, least of all the drugs coming across the border at legal ports of entry.
He said percent of the narcotics coming in to the United States are coming through ports of entry, official openings in the so-called barrier or wall between the United States and Mexico. “We could be scanning the vehicles coming into the United States to see if they contain contraband, narcotics, firearms, even victims of human trafficking. Fewer than 1 out of 5 vehicles are being scanned now.”
Durbin stated that Customs and Border Protection officials said the cost of scanning vehicles would be $300 million.
Why we can’t have a wall and the scanning technology the Land of Lincoln leftist did not say.
