Like bad B movies, shutdown dramas all follow the same plot, almost always end the same way, and inexplicably spawn more sequels.
Threats come from Congress and the White House. Press conferences are held. Very serious lines are drawn. The media swarms. Nothing happens.
Of course, we can’t just flip the channel altogether when the lights of the federal government start to flicker. Checks need to be cut to the metaphorical army of 2.7 million federal employees, and our actual armies around the world need to be funded as well. But the legislative fights are melodrama, and they are getting boring, especially when they happen in a lame duck period.
The two most significant shutdown scuffles came during the Obama administration. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell secured what later became the steep spending cuts of sequestration during the 2011 debt crisis. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and his companions actually turned the lights off two years later in a vain attempt to repeal funding for Obamacare. The government went dark for 16 days. Federal employees were furloughed, but later paid. A good citizen stepped up to mow the lawn of the Lincoln Memorial. Otherwise, not much changed.
Sequestration took effect in 2013 as a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, approximately $85 billion from discretionary and nondiscretionary programs was cut but was ultimately abandoned when Obama signed the budget deal of 2015. During the resulting “fiscal cliff” crisis of 2013 McConnell and then Vice President Joe Biden hammered out a deal to extend Bush-era tax cuts — a victory, yes, but not one that should have required the initial prospect of a government shutdown. The actual Obamacare shutdown was less successful. After two weeks of drama, the government re-opened and healthcare law was fully funded.
Somehow, all of this, doesn’t bother President Trump. He thinks he can do the same thing and get a different result.
Trump tells Politico that he would “totally be willing” to force a shutdown in the lame duck session if Congress doesn’t give him $5 billion for a border wall. Unfortunately, this president is just as predictable as everyone else in Washington, D.C., and this isn’t the first time he has threatened a shutdown when his party controls both chambers of Congress.
After arrangements had been finalized for a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending package earlier in March, Trump had second thoughts. He tweeted a very scary sounding veto threat at 7:55 a.m. But of course, it fizzled. By early afternoon, Trump held a press conference expressing his displeasure over the spending, then dutifully signed the bill into law.
If Trump can’t even make the shutdown script exciting, if he can’t shake up actually significant policy changes, why are any of us watching this drama anymore?
