Republicans and Democrats reached an agreement on Friday, January 25, to end a 35-day government shutdown. It did not, however, include funding for President Donald Trump’s contentious wall on the south-western border, resulting in a huge loss of face for the White House.
This officially ends the longest shutdown in American history, though the path ahead is not entirely clear. It soon became clear that Trump, cornered and left with no choice, has reluctantly signed a short-term spending bill after it passed both chambers of Congress, while promising to continue negotiations on border security, until government funding lapses again on February 15.
This means he has agreed to fund the government for three weeks, at the end of which he can impose another shutdown or even declare an emergency.
Forces that ended the shutdown
After weeks of teasing and threatening emergency, the president delivered nothing for his pro-wall base and created financial instability for millions of others. He also managed to somehow unite Democrats around House Speaker Pelosi on the wall issue.
Pelosi has stood her ground since the first bizarre televised meeting at the Oval Office, while Democrats firmly and unanimously opposed the bid for the wall on the US-Mexico border. Last week, she rescinded her invitation for the presidents annual State of the Union address to the Congress while the government was still shuttered.
On Thursday, Trump was further embarrassed on the Republican-controlled Senate floor, where Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s bill to open the government got more votes than his. The presidents counter-offer, championed by the Jared Kushner camp, was to offer short-term relief for some undocumented immigrants in exchange for wall funding.
Border security and immigration issues are important, and we should deal with them, but we can deal with several important issues at the same time, said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. We cant put the rest of the business of government on hold while these issues, important though they are, are resolved.
This was followed by Oval Office meetings involving VP Mike Pence, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and close aide Jared Kushner, who gave the president several options, and he realised there was no easy way out of his self-imposed mess. That evening, he is said to have vacillated between reopening the government with a clean funding bill and declaring a national emergency.
Impact of shutdown on trade and economy
14,000 Internal Revenue Service workers reportedly didn’t come to work during the shutdown, imperiling tax returns. The partial closure of the government meant that about 800,000 federal workers were not paid which sent them scrambling to cover meals and bills.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the shutdown cost the American economy $3 billion.
The Federal Aviation Administration slowed down flights to several major airports, citing staffing issues. In Washington, the popular Smithsonian museums on the National Mall and the National Zoo will remain closed until Tuesday.
The House has reportedly resumed legislating on some Democratic priorities this week, including a bill to raise pay for civilian federal employees. Democrats and Republicans will also enter formal negotiations this week to see if they can reach a compromise on border-security funding levels and what constitutes a wall.
Further, with the reopening Securities and Exchange Commission, all the stalled IPOs for 2019, for highly-valued companies like Uber and Lyft, may resume though it is not clear if companies want to start the clock amidst such uncertainty.
Heres what a shutdown means
Every year, the US Congress has to pass laws funding the federal government for the president to sign. Shutdowns have occurred when the Congress has been unable to agree on a budget before a deadline, or if the president has refused to sign it. This shutdown began on December 22 and closed 25% of the government.
Soon after the Democrats gained control of one chamber of the Congress, the House of Representatives, they refused to approve funding for the wall on the US-Mexico border.
President Trump subsequently refused to sign legislation to fund and reopen the government if it did not include $ 5.7 billion for the wall.
To be continued?
Expressing scepticism that Congress would reach a deal to fund the border wall he requested, he told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that another government shutdown was certainly an option. Trump also said that he doubted he would accept less than $ 5.7 billion for the border wall, or agree to grant citizenship to “Dreamers” in exchange for wall funding, according to the WSJ report.
“Does anybody really think I won’t build the WALL? Done more in first two years than any President! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!,” Trump tweeted on Sunday night, denying the overwhelming media consensus that he had been outplayed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. An NBC–WSJ poll recently reported that most Americans hold Trump accountable for the chaotic shutdown.
Shortly after reopening the government, Trump set a February 15 deadline for a deal to get his wall money, and he has signalled he would declare a national emergency or use other executive powers if he couldn’t get the money through Congress.
If we dont get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on Feb. 15 [sic], again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency,” Trump said on January 26.
Nonetheless, over the next three weeks, lawmakers will come together in a bipartisan, bicameral conference to negotiate possible solutions to the border impasse. The White House administration, which continues to be obnoxiously defiant or in gross denial, will use proxies to hammer why the border is a national emergency. Democrats will likely use the time to take a victory lap but none of the outcomes spell money for the wall.
What happens in case of shutdown 2.0 or emergency?
By declaring a national emergency, Trump would have triggered the ability for the White House to move money around Congress-controlled prjects including Army Corps, civil works projects, and military construction projects. Members regard these monies as lifelines for their districts or states; Congress protects them zealously.
If the dealmaking fails, Trump will have to decide whether to risk shutting down the government again, in the middle of tax season, potentially prompting a return to the budding commercial air travel crisis.
Impact on Trumps presidency? Not good
The whole pointlessness of this exercise, and the economic impact it has had on federal employees and institutions, could be detrimental for Trumps presidency. He has received no credit for reopening the government, considering that he claimed most of it for creating the shutdown, while wasting a month of his presidency and accelerating his losing streak.
The New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman tweeted, “Not only did Trump alienate moderates with a shutdown, he upset his core 35 percent by caving and, most significantly for 2020, did it all as Democrats held together on a major issue fight.”
Outplayed by Pelosi, Trump proved that he was out of his depths when she refused to hold the State of the Union address in the House chamber. Presuming hed get $ 5.7 billion for a border wall, Trump has caved in exchange for $0.
Some critics even argue that Trump is not really keen on building a wall; he just uses it to galvanise his supporters instead. Furthermore, the entire debacle has proved the political advantages when Democrats control even one house of the Congress.
As all eyes are set for the countdown to February 15, it is clear that in this new post-midterm era of divided country and government, Trump will need to adopt a new strategy. According to CNN, that will require an ability to work the levers of power in Washington that Trump was unable to show even when the GOP had a monopoly on congressional power.
Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius