We're in a game of chicken on the wall. When will the "partial" gov't shutdown end? Trump has threatened to close the border.
Most Republican leaders would blink, but he's not a conventional politician. The political risk for Republicans is that gov't shutdowns are generally unpopular. However, with the midterms behind us, the GOP is in no immediate peril, and by 2020, the shutdown will be forgotten while other issues occupy center stage. Moreover, this is a signature issue for Trump, so if he holds firm an wins, the base will rally behind him.
But there's a political risk for Democrats, too. To begin with, many Americans oppose an open border policy. In addition, if the gov't shutdown continues, it may dawn on voters how expendable much of the Federal gov't really is. We're in the midst of a gov't shutdown, yet life goes on. It makes little appreciable difference. So why are we paying for all that extra gov't?
It's like popes who overplayed their hand by placing countries under edict to punish a rebellious monarch. But it backfired because Catholics discovered that life went on as usual with or without the sacraments. It made no discernible difference.
What if a partial gov't shutdown sends the message that we have far more gov't than we need? It wasn't the end of the world after all.
I am all for the wall, but it is probably too late at this point. He should have put that to bed in the first year of his presidency when there was a Republican Congress.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that he'll even be in for a second presidential term.
DeleteI don't know why the GOP can't do it in the lame duck session unless they don't have enough senators.
DeleteThey need 60 senators to pass any wall funding. Trump doesn't and never has had the votes to get the wall. He had one chance earlier and he blew it. The Democrats surprisingly offered to fund $25 billion for the wall in exchange for citizenship of the DACA recipients. And Trump had basically agreed to it with Schumer. But then administration hardliners balked and demanded more and that killed the deal. It was Trump's best chance and he blew it.
ReplyDeleteThat said, polls indicate the most Americans don't really want, much less care about the wall. So I'm not sure this is a winning issue for Trump. And the wall is problematic in a number of ways, which many people haven't taken the care to understand.
There already is wall and fencing around urban ares along the entire border because those are popular areas for illegals to try and cross. In addition, there is wall and fencing from El Paso to the Pacific (for the most part), with walls at urban areas and vehicle obstacles in remote areas where foot traffic is likely to be light, and vehicles would be needed to cross rough and isolated terrain. Most of the walls, fencing and obstacles here were built on public land which made it easy to do.
That leaves the Rio Grande Valley as the primary area without much fencing/wall/etc. The problems here are multiple. The Big Bend area is a National Park and you couldn't put fencing there without legislation - and given the remote and desolate area it is, a wall would probably be a waster of money here.
The rest of the Rio Grande valley is largely privately owned, and many there don't want a wall intruding on their property. The govt would have to file thousands of condemnation suits to seize the property, not exactly a "small govt" solution. It would take years, and it would also require several administrations to support the effort year after year. A Democratic administration or Congress could just refuse to fund the wall in future years, or refuse to fund the condemnation efforts, just like the Republicans refused to fund aspects of Obamacare (great example of what goes around comes around).
The wall won't stop drug smuggling. Tunnels and drugs hidden in truck shipments are the main way drugs come across the border, not people carrying it across individually - that's just not cost effective. And with the advent of drones, well, so much for the wall. With regards to human crossing, walls just slow people down. Even now, walls are breached, cut out, crossed in various ways, and they often need repairing because of this.
From what I've read, most experts agreed that there are better, more effective, less expensive and less intrusive ways to secure the border. More Border Patrol agents, cameras, sensors, and drones could do the job much better than a static wall.