So much for the ‘Art of the Deal’: Trump and GOP leaders are about to cave on the budget
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Imagine walking into a car dealership and getting down on your hands and knees frantically pleading for a deal and begging the salesman not to walk away lest you be left without a car? As maniacal as this analogy sounds, it doesn’t fully capture the insanity of what Republicans do during budget battles when they telegraph to Democrats their irrational fear of government shutdowns.
It is precisely weeks such as this one for which voters elected Donald Trump. They were tired of the pre-emptive surrender, flaccid negotiators, and the low expectations of what Republicans should receive from a budget deal when they control Congress, much less all three branches of government.
It’s as if the election never happened. Republicans are continuing to preemptively surrender their leverage on budget battles and evince an incorrigible dread of government shutdowns, even though they now control the White House. Rather than pound the lectern demanding that our values be upheld in this budget — that no taxpayer funding be used for Planned Parenthood, that the president’s immigration order be codified by defunding refugee resettlement, that the border wall be funded — the only thing Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has gotten animated about these days is the need to avoid a government shutdown. As such, Democrats have told Republicans that the only way to avoid a shutdown is for them to agree to their spending levels and policies. Republicans are readily agreeing.
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I remember writing about the 2011 budget battles, when Republicans took back the House, as if it was yesterday. Even with just control of one branch of government, Republicans pledged to defund some of the most egregious aspects of the Democrat agenda, such as Planned Parenthood. It’s on page 28 of the GOP’s 2010 Pledge to America. Yet, we were told to wait for “the next time” and then “the next time”… then we were told that control of Congress was meaningless without control of the White House. Even after videos were released in 2015 showing Planned Parenthood trafficking baby parts, a seminal moment in the 40-year battle over abortion, Republicans still kept taxpayer funding for this abominable private organization.
Now they control it all, and it’s as if nothing changed. President Trump has been leading from behind while McConnell and company ignore the election.
The question conservatives voters must now ask is: At what point does it become clear that this is no longer a question of strategy and process limitation but rather about a party that fundamentally doesn’t share our values?
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The GOP budget capitulation is breathtaking https://t.co/n2aJYXAxnP
— Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) April 4, 2017
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